Biology is driven by genetics, and it's what grounds the field. I think that, perhaps, your experience is more in bioinformatics, for which I share some of you

Biology is driven by genetics, and it's what grounds the field. I think that, perhaps, your experience is more in bioinformatics, for which I share some of your skepticism. Some good work is being done there, but usually that has a strong genetic component. We're at an interesting point where many of the useful mutant screens have been done to saturation, at least for the most common species. Expanding our genomic resources to screen more species is certainly helping. The way forward is just the same as it ever was; good mutant phenotypes with strong genetics. I don't think 'serious math' is at all useful for most biological investigation. Modelling is only a means for generating hypotheses, and in my experience it's a terribly weak tool. A poor substitution for proper genetics.