• Question: Do you have to do well in maths to be a good scientist?

    Asked by erinwaterfield123 on 8 Jan 2018.
    • Photo: Sophie Scott

      Sophie Scott answered on 8 Jan 2018:

      It helps, but it’s also good to study a range of different sciences – I did chemistry physics and biology A levels, and I still find those very useful!

    • Photo: Wendy M. Grossman

      Wendy M. Grossman answered on 8 Jan 2018:

      I think there are many sciences where you can be successful without being good at math, but I think learning to grapple with math is easier than most people think and that developing some understanding of it is valuable in *every* discipline, not just scientific ones. I would like all journalists to be required to study statistics, for example, because lack of understanding leads to poor-quality reporting – on everything from medical trials and climate change to social trends. So I’d say keep trying, even if it’s not your best subject.

      wg

    • Photo: Nadine Lavan

      Nadine Lavan answered on 8 Jan 2018:

      I agree – it probably helps helps to at least enjoy doing maths – statistics are a big part of the job. Having said that, I never enjoyed maths at school at all (and was actually not great at it) but once I started to solve problems in my own data I discovered how fun it can be!

    • Photo: Alyssa Alcorn

      Alyssa Alcorn answered on 8 Jan 2018:

      I agree with Nadine. I always hated maths at school and refused to take any of it at University during my undergrad degree. However, I do like statistics because it’s ‘real’–it represents information that I and my team collected, and I know exactly where the numbers came from and what they mean. THAT SAID… I would have done much better during my masters degree if I knew a lot more maths. To some extent, my research area was steered slightly to the side into human-computer interaction because I was always weak at maths, and simply couldn’t keep up with the work in some of the modules I initially wanted to study (like making computer simulations of neurons and the brain).

      Keep in mind also that science (taken broadly) also includes qualitative methodologies that may not use numbers or maths at all!

    • Photo: Freya Wilson

      Freya Wilson answered on 9 Jan 2018:

      I’d say it depends on the type of maths and the type of science. An understanding of data is always going to be handy, and so is applying logic. If you want to do physics then some of the more complicated algebra and so on is going to be helpful.

      There are definitely some bits that I didn’t understand right the way up until my degree when it suddenly clicked in to place.

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