Biology for Programmers

The cluster centers on debates about whether computer scientists and programmers need substantial biology knowledge to work effectively in bioinformatics or apply computing to biological problems, often invoking the 'Can a biologist fix a radio?' analogy to highlight interdisciplinary challenges.

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#1162
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Keywords

CS e.g AI HN canabiologistfixaradio.pdf arizona.edu ycombinator.com STEM www.cell S1535 biology bio sciences molecular disciplines lab science chemistry standardized biological

Sample Comments

TrevorJ Jul 31, 2009 View on HN

Corollary: should Computer scientists study biology? Yes

rlwolfcastle Dec 13, 2013 View on HN

You should remind him that biology is not computing.

iskander Jul 19, 2020 View on HN

Sure, what's your degree of bio background?

takluyver Mar 24, 2013 View on HN

That's good to hear - my discipline, biology, isn't quite so forward thinking.

hereme888 Sep 7, 2025 View on HN

Learn about biology? lol, idk how much more to do so. What's your professional training background?

1971genocide Nov 10, 2015 View on HN

"knowledge of biology"I am not sure you fully appreciate what " knowledge of biology" means. As a programmer who did a lot of molecular biology in the past - doing molecular biology is not simple. The learning curve for a lot of biological topics - especially the ones that get close to organic chemistry is really steep.

jimmywanger Nov 20, 2017 View on HN

Why would we need to fix basic biology?

yoz-y Apr 12, 2018 View on HN

Older article in similar vein: "Can a biologist fix a radio?" http://math.arizona.edu/~jwatkins/canabiologistfixaradio.pdf

okeefm Mar 1, 2010 View on HN

As a bioinformatics/molec bio student, I would be interested in a bio HN.

dekhn Apr 28, 2023 View on HN

you can't do bioinformatics without knowing biology first.