Re: "Algorithms" in Molecular Biology?


"Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote

The unusually-brilliant moderator of this group will probably censor my
post, but I have a comment: asking whether molecules "use algorithms" is
the
same thing as asking "does the Moon calculate its orbit?" It is
troublesome
that the latter (as well as the former) are not more widely recognized as
stupid.

I tried to hint at the scientific respectability of my inquiry by citing
Sydney Brenner, but Brenner is not the only Nobel Prize winning scientist
who has expressed the view that the future of science, and in particular
biological science, lies with understanding nature's ALGORITHMS. Manfred
Eigen said that we must look for the algorithms that generate biological
information. If you look at the deepest thoughts on these subjects of
mathematicians and physicists like Stanislaw Ulam, Alan Turing, John von
Neumann, and Erwin Schrodinger, you will find that they were all looking at
life this way, and indeed, the idea goes back to Liebnitz and Descartes. So
"stupid" seems...a bit unkind, frankly, and not indicative of broad
scientific learning.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: "Algorithms" in Molecular Biology?
    ... in article e4srsq$i6j$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, John Wilkins at ... lies with understanding nature's ALGORITHMS. ... "stupid" seems...a bit unkind, frankly, and not indicative of broad ... Even respected scientists, and in my opinion physicists more often than ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: "Algorithms" in Molecular Biology?
    ... lies with understanding nature's ALGORITHMS. ... "stupid" seems...a bit unkind, frankly, and not indicative of broad ... Even respected scientists, and in my opinion physicists more often than ... These equations, and the underlying algorithms, are *abstractions* ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • "Algorithms" in Molecular Biology?
    ... biology in terms of algorithms (I first encountered this from Sydney Brenner ... What we are finding about the way genes actually work, ... do serious biologists talk in terms of "algorithms"? ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)