Response to E.O. Wilson's "Great Scientists Don't Need Math"

                In the Wall Street Journal, E.O Wilson wrote an article entitled “Great Scientist ≠ Good at Math.” (here)   There were so many logical fallacies in this article, that I decided that it needed more than a few paragraphs in the comments section, it required an entire response.

                The gist of Wilson’s point is that not all scientists need high levels of math.  He claims that most scientists just hire someone to do the math for them and others don’t need math at all. 

                Wilson states that, “Pioneers in science only rarely make discoveries by extracting ideas from pure mathematics.”  That’s beside the point and the point should not be limited to pioneers of science (who mostly worked before calculus had even been developed), but instead it should be about the vast majority of modern scientists.  Wilson follows up this statement with the idea that if something new is discovered, the scientist can just hire a mathematician to analyze the data.  Science is so tied to instrumentation, data collection and analysis, how would the scientist know (s)he had discovered something new until the data was analyzed?  If the scientist is not good at math, how would (s)he even know what to ask the mathematician to look for, what equipment to use, or what methodology to follow?  This would be like saying that a General Medical Practitioner doesn’t need to know anything about cancer because there are oncologists out there.  But how will the GP even know to refer the patient to the oncologist?  The more the doctor knows about cancer, the better (s)he will be at referring patients.  Similarly, the more a scientist knows about math, the better able they’ll be to make new discoveries.

                Wilson then states what he calls Wilson’s Principal No. 1, “It is far easier for scientists to acquire needed collaboration from mathematicians and statisticians than it is for mathematicians and statisticians to find scientists able to make use of their equations.”  Whether it’s easier for a scientist to find a mathematician or a mathematician to find a scientist has nothing to say about whether the scientist needs to be good at math.  What it really says is that mathematicians should be better at science.  Wilson’s Principal No. 1 is a not applicable to this discussion.

                Wilson then argues, “The annals of theoretical biology are clogged with mathematical models that either can be safely ignored or, when tested, fail.”  The same could be said of non-mathematical theoretical sciences!  This has nothing to do with the math; it’s just how science works.  Many hypotheses are tested and most of them fail.  Think ether, flat world, geocentric model of the universe, indivisibility of atoms.  They’re all false and none of them involved any mathematics.

                Wilson follows this up by saying that if a scientist’s mathematical skills are weak, they should try to improve them, but otherwise should avoid the highly mathematical sciences, “These include most of physics and chemistry, as well as a few specialties in molecular biology.”  What?  Much of biology, all of chemistry, and all of physics?  Isn’t that pretty much the vast majority of the sciences?  That’s like saying, “Buy any computer operating system you want unless it’s Windows, MacOS, or Linux.”  Additionally, the social sciences are highly grounded in statistics, earth science (hydrology, petrology, seismology) are highly mathematical as well.  The space sciences are a mixture of observational science and mathematical analyses.

                Wilson gives Darwin as an example when he says, “Darwin had little or no mathematical ability, but with the masses of information he had accumulated, he was able to conceive a process to which mathematics was later applied.”  But for every Darwin, there are thousands of scientists at CERN, NASA, NOAA, DOE, and military research labs who apply advanced mathematics to their data every day.

                Then Wilson describes his Principal No. 2, “For every scientist, there exists a discipline for which his or her level of mathematical competence is enough to achieve excellence.”  Although literally true, this is highly deceiving.  The relationship between level of mathematical ability and the number of jobs available to a scientist is like an upside down pyramid.  Sure, if your math skills are weak, there’s a job out there that matches that ability, you just cannot get it because there’s so much competition and so few jobs at that level.  This would be the same as saying that journalists don’t really need to be good writers and “For every journalist, there exists a newspaper for which his or her level of writing competence is enough to achieve excellence.”  Sure, that’s probably true, but the better their writing skills, the better their chance of finding a job.

                I should confess that my degree is in physics, so I might be biased on the mathematical side, but it is clear that E.O. Wilson’s life science bent has biased him in the opposite direction.  Somewhere in between no math at all and 8 semesters of calculus is probably reasonable.