Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!decvax!mcnc!duke!phs!paul From: paul@phs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.bio Subject: Purpose of bio newsgroup Message-ID: <2205@phs.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Mar-84 10:18:36 EST Article-I.D.: phs.2205 Posted: Thu Mar 8 10:18:36 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Mar-84 08:42:23 EST Lines: 35 < > Before asking whether net.bio should be abolished, one should consider what its purpose is, might have been, or should be. While there are probably quite a few biologists on the net, it is perhaps unlikely that net.bio will, in the forseeable future, be used extensively as a medium for exchange between biologists. This is in large part because biology is rather a large field, and areas of expertise may not overlap much (who else out there knows much about electroenzymological study of Na,K-ATPase? impulse propagation in developing hearts?); it is also in large part because, when biologists get stuck on a problem, they are more likely to talk to the fellow in the next lab or call an expert on the 'phone than fling a question out to an unknown audience. There are, however, two uses of net.bio which do involve biologists and which might lead to extensive use of same. [1]. Net users of any stripe, having a question about biology (non-medical, since there is net.med), might best expect that people who know about biology would be hanging around net.bio. [2]. Net users who are relatively ignorant when it comes to applying computers to biological problems might best seek help in net.bio, where one presumes there are (or will be) both biologists and computerists who know how to get useful results from computers. Finally, while I do not wish to see the entire creation/evolution debate moved into net.bio, I think it perfectly reasonable for purely biological discussion of some issues to take place in net.bio (where else?). The percentage of computerists who know something substantial about abiogenesis or evolution is likely to be smaller than the percentage of biologists who do. ---------------------------------- Paul Dolber @ Duke U Med Ctr (...!duke!phs!paul).