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What better Maths or Medicine?

Not sure where to put it, so I put it into Maths.

I was having an argument about this with a friend and was just wondering what you guys think. In terms of their usefulness to society.
Which is more useful for a human to have, a heart or lungs?

Maths and Medicine are both essential to the functioning of our society in different ways. We need both mathematicians and doctors. In the very short term, doctors probably get more instant gratification, so it may seem intuitive to say Medicine. But since you specifically mentioned society, it's important to be aware that our society would be a stone age one without maths
Mathematics underpins much of science, and that is true of medical science. More lives are saved by public health measures than individual medical interventions and this must be based on statistics and epidemiology. Franklin Crick and Watson could not have found the structure of DNA without Fourier analysis used in x-ray crystalography. X-ray CT and PET scanners have algorithms based on the work of Radon and many subsequent mathematicians. You could also make an argument for Physics and Chemistry also underpinning medicine. As the poster above said, you can't have medicine without fundmental mathematics (and science). It wouldnt be stone age but it would be dark ages.
Reply 3
Avatar for Nix-j-c
Nix-j-c
15
I'd say maths is more fundermental as without maths you can't make many medical discoveries and advancements, but then those are probably more beneficial to society than the actual maths.
Reply 4
Avatar for zmzm
zmzm
7
Yup. No maths=no medicine

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