One of the most exciting things about being involved in computer programming and biology is that both fields are rich in new techniques and results. Biology is an old science, but many of the most interesting directions in
biological research are based on recent techniques and ideas. The modern science of
genetics, which has earned a prominent place in modern biology, is just about 100 years old,
dating from the widespread acknowledgement of Mendel's work. The elucidation of the structure of (DNA)
deoxyribonucleic acid and the first protein structure are about 50 years old, and the
(PCR) polymerase chain reaction
technique of cloning DNA is almost 20 years old. The last decade saw the launching and completion of the
Human Genome Project that revealed the totality of human genes and much more.
Today, we are in a golden age of
biological research, a point in human history of great medical, scientific, and philosophical importance.
Algorithms have been around since ancient times (Euclid), and the interest in computing machinery is also antique (Babbage's steam-driven inventions of the 19th century). But programming was really born about 60 years ago, at the same time as construction of the first large, programmable, electronic computers, namely the ENIAC. Programming has grown very rapidly to the present day and the Internet is about 30 years old, as are personal computers; the Web is about 20 years old. Today, our communications, transportation, agricultural, financial, government, business, artistic, and of course, scientific endeavors are closely tied to computers and their programming. This rapid and recent growth gives the field of computer programming a certain excitement and requires that its professional practitioners stay current with the latest trends.
Programming represents procedural knowledge, the knowledge of how to do things, and one way to look at the importance of computers in our society and our history is to see the enormous growth in procedural knowledge that the use of computers has occasioned.
The computer has become the ruling metaphor for explaining things in general and it is tempting to think of a cell's molecular biology in terms of a
special kind of computing machinery.
Similarly, the remarkable discoveries in biology have found a parallel in computer science.
There are
- evolutionary programs,
- neural networks, and
- machine learning.