TITLE: DNA, Ideas, and the CS Curriculum
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: February 28, 2006 11:19 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Today is the anniversary of Watson and Crick's piecing
together the three-dimensional structure of DNA, the
famed double helix.  As with many great discoveries,
Watson and Crick were not working in isolation.  Many
folks were working on this problem, racing to be the
first to "unlock the secret of life".  And Watson and
Crick's discovery itself depended crucially on data
collected by chemist Rosalind Franklin, who died before
the importance of her contribution became widely known
outside of the inner circle of scientists working on
the problem.

Ironically, this is also the birthday of one of the men
against whom Watson and Crick were racing:
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling">
   Linus Pauling</A>.
Pauling is the author of one of my favorite quotes:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot
of ideas...
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Perhaps the great geniuses have only good ideas, but most
of us have to work harder.  If we can free ourselves to
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Different">
   Think Different</A>,
we may actually come across the good ideas we need to
make progress.

Of course, you can't stop at generating ideas.  You then
have to examine your candidates critically, exposing them
to the light of theory and known facts.  Whereas one's
inner critic is an enemy during idea generation, it is
an essential player during the sifting phase.

Pauling knew this, too.  The oft-forgotten second half of
Pauling's quote is:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
... and throw the bad ones away.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Artists work this way, and so do scientists.

This isn't a "round" anniversary of Watson and Crick's
discovery; they found the double helix in 1953.  It's
not even a round anniversary of Pauling's birth, as he
would be 105 today.  (Well, that's sort of round.)  But
I heard about the anniversaries on the radio this morning,
and the story grabbed my attention.  Coincidentally,
DNA has been on my mind for a couple of reasons lately.
First, my
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2006-02.html#e2006-02-24T14_30_54.htm">
   last blog entry</A>
talked about a paper by Bernard Chazelle that uses DNA
as an example of duality, one of the big ideas that
computer science has helped us to understand.  Then,
on the plane today, I read a paper by a group of folks
at Duke University, including my friend
<A HREF="http://www.cs.duke.edu/~ola/">
   Owen Astrachan</A>,
on an attempt to broaden interest in computing, especially
among women.

Most research shows that women become interested in
computing when they see how it can be used to solve real
problems in the world.  The Duke folks are exploring how
to use the science of networks as a thematic motivation
for computing, but another possible domain of application
is bioinformatics.  Women who major in science and
technology are far more likely to major in biology than
in any other discipline.  Showing the fundamental role that
computing plays in the modern biosciences might be a way
to give women students a chance to get excited about our
discipline, before we misdirect them into thinking that
<TT>computerScience.equals( programming )</TT>.

My department launched a new undergraduate major in
bioinformatics last fall.  So we have a mechanism for
using the connection between biology and computing to
demonstrate computing's utility.  Unfortunately, we have
made a mistake so far in the structure of our program:
all students start by taking two semesters of traditional
programming courses before they see any bioinformatics!
I think we need to do some work to our first courses.
Perhaps Astrachan and his crew can teach us something.

I'm in Houston for SIGCSE this week, and the Duke paper
will be presented here on Saturday.  Sadly, I have to
leave town on Friday...  If I want to learn more about
the initiative than I can learn just from the paper, I
will need to take advantage of my own social network to
make a connection.
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