/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7235822
Hmmm? Sure they are Sciences, just not yet very quantitative, that will change when Mathematical Biology takes over the standard curriculum. As of now the skills necessary in these fields are not the same required for Physics/Chem

>>7235822
>spot the biologist

>>7235822
But they aren't ?
I'm confused, what do you mean ?

>>7235823
>sciences have to be quantitative


KEK

>>7235822
But it's not a troll, it's a movement to quell the harmful public perception effect of science that biology causes and many distinguished academics and professionals are joining in.

Biology has scientific aspects, especially microbio/biochem and unfounded aspects that are held as "factual" by practitioners in the field, especially macro biology. The problem comes when biologists then try to relate those likely-to-be-disproved-by-real-science-later-"facts" as "scientific facts", which it is not. Unlike engineers, computer scientists economists they are not trained to distinguish between scientific fact and empirically established practice/guidelines as well the use of methods from non-scientific fields.

Physics and chemistry does not have the same issues which is why they are considered real sciences while biology is not. There are further issues in that biologists are not properly educated in real science even on an introductory level. The fact that Tai was able to publish this:
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper and it received a lot of references is proof of that schism between the (over populated) biology community and the real scientific community

Therefore biologists should not be considered real scientists until we radically change the way we educate our biologists to include more physics, chemistry and math classes.


Psychology is a just a crock of horseshit and I think we all know that. Neuroscience advancements will get rid of it soon hopefully.

>>7235867
>http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper
Holy shit

>>7235822
Well they are much harder to study then physics and chemistry.
Its hard to truly isolate variables in biology and nearly impossible in psychology.

>>7235867 (cont.)
>But anon, why haven't we improved the programmes already?

I'm glad you asked Anon. It's rather simple. You see, Biology and Psychology are money mill degrees. Universities intentionally keep real science out of their curricula because it's the easy party major for rich kids to throw tuition money. What's the harm right? We get our real scientists from serious programmes and there's always grad-school. When you compare the amount of core credits these programmes need to take compared to say Physics and Engineering, you'll find it's barely a fraction.

Clearly both bio and psych programmes would benefit from staking only general science and math courses for 4 semesters and then having more intensive discipline specific courses in their junior and senior. Faculties know this, but they don't care, they want to keep the entrance and pass requirements low for more easy money.

Calling Biology an easy-mode degree is not a meme or a joke or even something derogatory, it's a protest.

>>7235822
As far as I can sufficiently tell, a "hard" science is one that has some level of rigor and objectivity in its dealings & matters. Now, even amongst "hard" scientific circles there is some level of academic debate on what exactly constitutes "rigor," but for our own sake, we'll assume it's just the scientific method done strenuously.

When you ask a chemist what the chemical make up of water is, they can, with great confidence, tell you exactly what it is composed of. Going even further, we can ask that same chemist what happens when you put water and sodium together, and while you're enjoying your stay at the burn ward, we can ask the other STEMfags.

The mathematician, could explain to you WHY 1+1=2, and a whole host of fairly rudimentary things extrapolated in extraneously rigorous detail, you wish you'd never asked him in the first place. Or a Physicist would hand wave all his wavy particles in your face, much to the chagrin of the mathematician.

Soft Sciences try to mimic the rigor of the hard sciences and apply it to the fickle reality we find ourselves in. So, while you're having a shitty time in the burn ward, someone else may be having the time of their life. Psychologists try to quantify such joy through many studies, but nobody ever really agrees, and there isn't a real way to figure out why that particular person enjoys being near exothermic reactions. Biology tries the same with more success, but not that much as: >>7235872 says.

>>7235877
>Chemical Engineering: 5,900 undergrads

Huh. Never would have thought. Is it really that hard?

>Computer Science: 38,500

Thought it'd be lower. Everyone pushed CS so fuckin' much, I'm fairly certain that'll decline in the next ten years.

>Business & Management: 253,736

What the fuck? Why are so many people going into business? Why isn't business a meme degree? The data doesn't lie

>Forensics: 811
> Astronomy: 335
>Atmospheric Sciences: 721

Holy shit. Why so low? 300k starting when?

Seriously, where are you guys going to school?
I needed calc 3, Chem 1, Chem 2, Inorganic Chem 1, Inorganic Chem 2, Physics 1, Physics 2. Bio 1, Bio 2, Biochem, and 4 Biology electives to get my undergrad.

>>7235888
Forensics do seem like a sure way to get a job.

>>7235888
>Is it really that hard?
Yes. That's graduates, the enrollment is roughly triple that.

>Thought it'd be lower.
Those unfortunately include degrees that aren't really CS, but closer to IT/programming.

>Why isn't business a meme degree?
It IS a meme degree. The only business graduates taken seriously are top 20 school trust fund babies who will inherit a business. Even MBAs are losing their value, it's an ad-hoc for real professionals. A business degree on its own doesn't teach you any real skills, the best business graduates end up on some working class office job or middle management, the rest end up in service jobs. Even philosophy has higher prospects like law school.

>Why so low?
It's not low, those are yearly graduates, the demand for those fields aren't particularly high.

>>7235888
Trips checked
>Astronomy
>Business
I can't speak for the other disciplines but Business is already a meme degree, /sci/ considers it so, just that because we're always discussing Science (vaguely Science related) things it rarely comes up. As for Astronomy, my best guess is that not many people are actually interested in the subject, yes you have pop-sci sperglords who fantasize about space but they don't get past the rigour that's involved; furthermore it's a subset of Physics as far as my local universities handle things, so definitely less than most other individual degrees.

>>7235899
>>7235895
>>7235891
>>7235888

>tfw I didn't go Astronomy

Why even live?

Oh and while we're at it, this stuff is super legit, the guys (and handful of girls) who actually do computational biology are gods with discrete math and coding.
>http://www.science.nus.edu.sg/undergraduate-studies/career-prospects/174-undergraduate/ugprog/554-computational-biology

>>7235867
>http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper

I don't get it

Why only areas a to h. That's not the total area, that's about 2/5 of the total area


why is it only

>>7235902
That's not really a lot compared to PhD holders in vanilla physics or engineering. It's also an extremely competitive field, but no one ever said the money was bad.

>>7235909
You can tell the author didn't even bother

>>7235909
Anon...please take baby calc before posting on /sci/, you're missing the bigger picture.

Actually fuck, it's barely baby calc, don't people teach Riemann sums and rectangle rules in high-school anymore?

>>7235917
I understand the concept of trapezoidal approximation

But the figure says the the total area of the curve is areas a to h

I can't think of a single way to interpret this that leads to the correct approximation

>>7235888

How can comp sci decline? Things are becoming more computerized all the time

But a true understanding of Biology still requires a knowledge base of chemistry and physics anyway. I'd say from all the Bio classes I've taken, including introductory, 50% of the material was metabolism. I don't see the point of having this superiority complex over the subject you chose to invest your interest in.

>>7235923
Lads post
>yfw this bloke is a biologist
>yfw people wonder why biology isn't considered a hard science

>>7235923
She labeled each rectangle, b has an area of rectangle b = y_1*X_1 etc. Each of the triangles and rectangles have labels which is what she's summing (instead of just calculating the entire trapezoid directly).

More to the point she didn't reference even such a fundamental concept and her entire paper was just about the riemann sums which she thought was actually a unique idea.

Like you said her methods and notation is shit too,

>>7235926
>How can comp sci decline? Things are becoming more computerized all the time

That's true, but it's all also not completely underneath CS's umbrella. As another anon mentioned earlier in the thread, they lumped in other technological fields like IT, so it's technically lower. Mix that with the fact that it's relentlessly pushed, it's no wonder there are so many, but I see what you're getting at and it makes sense.

>>7235930
Am I being baited?

>>7235889
That's decent. I wish all bio programmes were this good. What school? Do you often get frustrated with the poor quality of publications in your field?

>>7235935
please respond, am I genuinely retarded and missing something or is the annotation a lie

>>7236033
It is a lieeee

>>7235867
>Posting one's opinion over a whole set of fields as a consensus of scientific community.
Check.
>Generalizing the whole field over one shitty paper.
Check (look up Bogdanov affair, physicists are just hacks after all).
>Implying every curriculum at every university at every country for every biology program (including mathematical biology, molecular etc) contains insufficient degree of maths, physics or chemistry.
Check

>>7235822
Holy fuck, the right chick looks like she has a million layers of make-up on her right after getting tanned. I don't think she could be any uglier, and I REALLY dig her. Also
> tfw dig both of them equally when they are complete opposites of each other

psychology is pseudoscience

>We conclude from this data that while video games are certainly enjoyable, meaningful video game experiences are far from uncommon. Video game enjoyment seems to be more a function of gameplay and how it satisfies our feelings of competence and autonomy, but video game appreciation seems to be a function of game narratives and how they satisfy our feelings of relatedness and insight.

>psychology
>science

>OP fell for the troll

>>7236106
you do realize that posting this fucking fish and hook all the time makes everybody ignoring your postings?

>>7236106
You forgot
>Is 100% correct
Check.

>>7236124
She looked kind of hot on HIMYM where the camera angles+lighting is perfect for all that makeup, but I've never seen her without makeup, she probably looks like shit without it.

I'm scared guys
I'm applying for undergrad biomedical engineering next year
should I ditch it in favor of chemical engineering?
or just kill meself

>>7236214
BiomedE has nothing to do with biology or chemE.

Why don't you try actually reading up on fields before wasting tuition money on something you know nothing about?

>>7236222
i know what biomedE does.
i want to work in medical environments, creating equipment and innovations in the field

the other thing is, im pretty worried about making a living out of this
which would be a safer chouce, chemE or biomedE, im very comfortable in maths chemistry, biology a bit less but stil.

Hands down. Only fields that can be considered science are

>maths
>physics
>engineering

Even if you boil down everything in the end there is only maths.

Everything is build on maths.

>>7236213
> where the camera angles+lighting is perfect for all that makeup, but I've never seen her without makeup, she probably looks like shit without it.
That applies to everybody. But yeah, she was 10/10 in HIMYM
>dat cheek bones
>boner stop it
>"no"

>>7236230
Do it. If you're good at every subject you will find work.

>>7236230
If you do chemE 95% of the work will be about things you have zero interest in and you will probably drop out. Just do BiomedE. There are jobs, just don't be shit and you'll get hired.

>>7235822

>lol alchemy isn't science guise

Give it some time.

>>7236268
But it isn't now. Who says it doesn't deserve more time?

>hating bio
>not doing drugs

what do you all have against breeding bacterial colonies, subjecting them to radiation, and eating them to see if they taste nice

>>7235877
WTF i'm getting going into biology next year and you're telling me they're not gonna teach me any chemistry/maths? I don't want to get a shit tier degree and move back into my parents, i wanna get a Ph.D in microbiology and study genetics and diseases and shit.

what do?

>>7236683
Be sure to develop your own foundations in maths (and to some extent chemistry). You don't need to learn too much, but you will have some chemistry lectures i expect. You're responsible for your own learning at the end of the day - biology degrees teach biological topics.

>>7235822
>giving a shit what 4chan thinks qualifies as science
I laughed.

>>7235867
>Psychology is a just a crock of horseshit and I think we all know that. Neuroscience advancements will get rid of it soon hopefully.
Laughing harder now. Thank you for that. Broad ignorant generalizations make my Monday.

>>7236683
You'll be fine. Learn the fundamentals of programming and make sure your stats are solid. Those were the important things my microbiology curriculum was short on.

>>7236683
Don't listen to a bunch of teenage shitposters here - they are just a bunch of dumbasses wanking their e-dicks off.

Look for college curricula and make an informed decision based on how much math does your college know.

If you go into microbiology/genetics, they WILL teach you chemistry and there will be math (although this part depends more on the individual schools).

If you want to study diseases, then go for it and don't give a shit about some faggots on 4chan.

Source - Grad student in mathematical biology and genomics.

>>7236764
Also this.

>>7236894
>know
teach

ffs

Even in my Psychology classes the tutors and lecturers say it's a pseudo-science.

>>7235930
>biology isn't considered a hard science
By autistic math neets who have no real world or social skills, sure. Its not like we haven't studied cells all the way down to the molecular level. OH WAIT, we have!

Pic related.

>>7235927
>But a true understanding of Biology still requires a knowledge base of chemistry and physics anyway.
Exactly.

>>7236235
>Even if you boil down everything in the end there is only maths.
Absolute bullshit. EVERYTHING is built on chemistry. Autistic neets inject math into everything all the time usually for no other purpose than to slow everyone else down and overall just over-complicate things on purpose.

>>7236764
>Neuroscience advancements will get rid of it
This is true. Psychology is popsci frufru nonsense most of the time and largely based on muh feels. Biopsych/neuro is already obliterating it, and rightfully so.

>>7235822
>psychology
>science

bio is squishy but at least it's not psychology hahahahaha

>>7235853

Science, at heart, is about making predictions. Biology can predict a lot of stuff which makes it a science technically, but a science like physics which is highly quantitative allows for more precise and detailed predictions about complex systems, which make it "more" of a science than non-quantitative fields like biology.

Psychology I wouldn't even consider a science in the first place. It's about as much of a science as history or gender studies

>>7238783
>but a science like physics which is highly quantitative allows for more precise and detailed predictions about complex systems, which make it "more" of a science than non-quantitative fields like biology.
You do realize physics is what governs biology on the subcellular level, correct? How else do you explain how a phospholipid bilayer keeps your cells together?

>>7238792
which is why physical chemistry is a thing, not biology...

>>7238792

Yeah, and mathematics is what ultimately governs physics. Therefore, the two fields are just the same!

The best sign of stupid people is when they think they are smart for making trivial and absolutely irrelevant points.

Now, we could inject a week's worth of useless busywork math (for you insane autists) trying to explain every fucking thing down to the position of each fucking electron in a cell membrane, but THERE IS NO REASON AND NO ONE WILL BENEFIT from such insanity. Thus it is wasted effort. Math does not govern everything, autists. Chemistry DOES. Stop injecting your numerical paraphilia into everything just to make yourselves feel better.

>>7238795
>which is why physical chemistry is a thing, not biology...
Physical chemistry inside a cell (or organism as a whole) IS biology.

>>7238799
>Yeah, and mathematics is what ultimately governs physics.
NO, physics governs physics. Math is an ABSTRACT CONCEPT that doesn't govern SHIT. It just helps you understand the phenomena at hand by being able to model it.

>>7238802
>Physical chemistry inside a cell (or organism as a whole) IS biology.
For example, let's take a quick look at ATP kinase. The chemistry loop that makes life possible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_kinase

wtf OP, not even mathematics is a real science.

>>7238782
>implying squishy is wrong thing.
B-but I like dissecting animals.

I bet half of the faggots here would just pass out instantly when needed to perform an autopsy.

>>7235823
Read a damn biology paper and tell me that biologists don't try to quantify as much as they can.

>>7236683
Depends on what kind of bio you do. Vanilla bio might not cover much but I think all science courses period require at least a year of physics/chem/math. Molecular bio / biochem you'll have at least 2 years of chem, maybe more. At least that's how it was where I went.

Two other things while I'm at it:
a.) A lot of the bio majors you see/saw in uni = premed students. These people are both busy with premed courses (such as immunology) that run miles around the introductory bio courses non-bio people were forced to sit through, and also it makes zero sense for them to risk their 4.0s over more advanced physics/chem coursework that will be of zero use to them in med school anyway.

b.) Biology is a hugely diverse field with radically different applications such as ecology, taxonomy, medical practice, medical (as in pharma) research, and just straight-up bio research (we still know scarily little about genetics/genomics and molecular pathways despite what the public seems to think). This means that the applications range from very simple (like counting frogs to track populations) to very complex, at which point basically you are more like an advanced chemist (as in molecular biologists commonly do mass spec, protein surface electrostatics etc in practice) but also tasked with needing to master a model organism. That is a lot harder than it sounds; it takes years to really know one hence they don't bother with that until you're in grad school. They -tell- you what Drosophila is in high school or whatever daycare intro class non-bio people had, but relative to what we actually know about it, that's like being told that Earth exists and not much further. There are over 200,000 Drosophila papers out there and almost 100,000 C. elegans papers, making for a couple million pages of reading, to understand literally every single little thing currently known about them. And yet we're still very VERY much in the fucking dark about a lot of things for just these models.

>>7238851
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper
Ok I concede

>>7238894
>Two other things while I'm at it:
Very well said.

>>7238894
So I'm good as long as I do extra-curricular learning and keep ahead of my retard/pre-med peers?

>>7235822
You get made fun of because it's stamp collecting. There's nothing wrong with that half of science, it's just something to give you shit about on /sci/. Give up on the victim complex, here is the only place that that is a meme.

>>7239984
/thread.
to say that biologists are stupid is about as true as mathematicians/physicists are autistic and engineers are gay

I have nothing against biologists.

But I genuinely consider it an insult that people consider psychology a science. There is no other endeavor more subjective, ill defined, and unfalsifiable that claims to be a science.

>>7240082
Maybe you should try reading some psych papers, writing rebuttals, and destroying careers. Damn subjectivist psychologists with their Weber's law, Power law, and CDFs!

>>7239991
So you're saying biologists are stupid?

>>7240123
Kek

>>7239991
> physicists
> autistic
Here's an average (aside from the intellect) physicist mindset.

>>7240123
Apparently.

>>7235867
>Neuroscience

>>7235822
Biology is a science it's just that on average the majority of it isn't anywhere near as difficult as the majority of Chemistry/Physics.
There are certainly portions of it which are harder than portions of Chemistry/Physics (Pretty sure most of it is harder than first year mechanics), but it's about the overall difficulty and not the hardest parts.
Psychology really isn't a science though.

>>7241534
>penjillette200.jpg
Jesus do you have at least 200 images of the same dude?

>>7235822
No one worth knowing actually thinks this mate. Psychology in particular is a textbook science. Bio was cataloguing for a long time, but then all sciences are initially.

>>7235902
astronomy is for fags. Physics or gtfo

>>7236033
Well this is basically just a baby introduction to integration, since in reality there would be an infinite number of infinitesimally-small-width rectangles over the length of the curve.

>>7240796
Even undergrads in physics can pull this shit. Best pussy of my life.

Requesting science and math power rankings

>>7242627
>Physics or Pure Math
>the other one
>chemistry
>biology

No other real sciences (also, math isn't science either but included and ranked for difficulty). Everything subjective bullshit.

>>7242636
forgot to say

>chemistry
>
>
>
>
>biology

So, if Biology and it's ramifications are not real sciences.
What do I call genetics, neuroscience and medicine? I guess I can call medicine a trade but the first to can't really be soft sciences.

>Biology

what are the axioms of psychology?

>>7242636
Some fields of computer science are a lot like pure math. I think it belongs above chemistry, as much as I like chemistry.

>>7242835
1) Make shit up and if it sounds cool make it a theory.

2) Proceed to insist psychology is a hard science until some shitty tidbit of data disproves (1).

3) Repeat.

>>7242638
>chemistry
>science
Everything outside physics is just BS.

>>7239984
>>7239991
>>7235839
>>7235867

Virologist here, your welcome for eradicating disease and allowing you to live comfy lives as armchair scientists.

>>7242931
>ignoring the chem guy

nice one Bio

>>7242931
This is why I chem, no arguments

>>7242620
That's what I said, dude.

>>7242931
>>7242931
>creating a new horsemen
>not counting as a point FOR physics

>>7242931
>Virologist here,
Thank you for your service.

>>7243113
*tips fedora*