What good is modeling? Introducing biology students to theory

2026/04/14 by Joanna Masel, Anna Dornhaus · 2 voices
#physics.ed-ph #q-bio.PE

paper · pdf

Abstract

Theory and empirical science should be in constant dialogue, but often find it hard to understand one another. Here we describe a graduate-level university course we developed to improve matters. The course was designed to help empirically-focused biology graduate students read and understand theory papers, despite little prior mathematical training. It uses several evidence-based principles of modern teaching: backwards design, active learning, and just-in-time teaching. We believe that this or similar curricular content, emphasizing the nature of evidence and the role of theory in science, will improve critical thinking and scientific progress.

Discussions

• Preprint: What good is modeling? Introducing biology students to theory - arxiv.org/abs/2604.13344 - how to teach and think about what modeling contributes to science. How does it fit into the scienti [bsky, 58 points, 2 comments]
• Moreover, it also demonstrates the power of agent-based models in evaluating various principles that may not be obvious from verbal statements. To learn more about the power of modeling, check this re [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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