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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.

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Paul Dolber @ Duke U Med Ctr (...!duke!phs!paul).