Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

Re:Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software backgr... by buboard on Thursday October 31, 2019 @10:35AM (#21409242)

> just about the most complex thing humans have ever studied

The question is if the methods are complex. AFAIK computational biology involves statistics, statistics and statistics. The systems themselves are incredibly complex and interconnected , but the abstraction levels of the math involved are not incredibly high.

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Re:Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software backgr... by Ultimatt on Thursday October 31, 2019 @11:29AM (#21409841)

There is statistics and then there is statistics. For example this paper is statistics based https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.3487 with some novel data too. But its stats over graphs, which is way less straight forward. You don't just fire up R and do model <- lme(data, x ~ y + z) That paper spawned a fairly amazing startup too one that I really really really doubt anyone could possibly have come up with without a PhD and a lot of insight https://mogrify.co.uk/

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Re:Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software backgr... by shpongled on Thursday October 31, 2019 @10:39AM (#21409291)

Sure, I guess my wording wasn't clear. It is the system itself that is complex, not the equations or statistics we use

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