Posted by jsomers 4/17/2025
As a computational biologist, I enjoy the parallels between the logic of hypothesis generation and testing in biology and algorithm-development on the CS side. In both areas, asking the right big questions is important. But in other cases, recognizing the importance and application of an otherwise obscure discovery is important, e.g., CRISPR and penicillin or discovery of transformers at Google vs their application at OpenAI.
You make a great point about the parallels (and differences) of hypothesis generation and testing for wet-lab and CS. There seems to be an ongoing debate about the lack of link between these two fields, leading to some misconceptions -- would be a great topic for an essay!