Well, speaking of when I did A-levels, it was uncommon to do sciences without at least AO maths. The most common patterns among my science-studying friends were three sciences plus AO maths among medics or biologists; chemistry, biology & maths/stats among biologists; or physics, chemistry, maths & further maths among physicists/mathematicians. What annoyed me is that no-one bothered telling me that A'level physics (in my day & with the syllabus we did) was a waste of time -- it was completely trivial -- while missing out on doing further maths effectively prevented me from studying university-level chemistry.
I'm not sure quite how true your statement is for biomedicine -- whilst the mathematically illiterate will struggle, there are many niches with little maths much beyond O'level. Also I worked in my vacations in a QC chemical lab where most of the permanent employees had no maths qualifications; the various spectrometers that measured the results were all completely automated.
I've been thinking about maths is the language in which we express science and I think it explains why I became increasingly disenchanted with hard sciences -- I don't find mathematical descriptions at all satisfying unless I can get some sense (at least occasionally) of how the system really is (for some sense of 'really is'). At A'level, the qualitative descriptions gave me occasional numinous feelings that I understood how (parts of) the universe really worked. Whereas, say particle spin, as far as I understand it, has no physical meaning -- it's just a convenient fiction; that didn't feel satisfying.
Sorry this is long, I've been mulling this over all day!
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-10-05 10:33 pm (UTC)I'm not sure quite how true your statement is for biomedicine -- whilst the mathematically illiterate will struggle, there are many niches with little maths much beyond O'level. Also I worked in my vacations in a QC chemical lab where most of the permanent employees had no maths qualifications; the various spectrometers that measured the results were all completely automated.
I've been thinking about maths is the language in which we express science and I think it explains why I became increasingly disenchanted with hard sciences -- I don't find mathematical descriptions at all satisfying unless I can get some sense (at least occasionally) of how the system really is (for some sense of 'really is'). At A'level, the qualitative descriptions gave me occasional numinous feelings that I understood how (parts of) the universe really worked. Whereas, say particle spin, as far as I understand it, has no physical meaning -- it's just a convenient fiction; that didn't feel satisfying.
Sorry this is long, I've been mulling this over all day!