Both you and the OP are right in your own ways. It's worth remembering that bioinformatics, computational biology and other inter-disciplinary fields like these

Both you and the OP are right in your own ways. It's worth remembering that bioinformatics, computational biology and other inter-disciplinary fields like these (mathematical oncology comes to mind) are relatively new and the proportion of biological sciences graduates doing these are dwarfed by the number that go through a "conventional" (as probably alluded to by the OP) biological sciences curriculum. Mathematical modeling in biological sciences is incredibly hard because of the sheer complexity in the many layers that comprise our knowledge of biology (cell layer. molecular biology layer, tissue layer etc) and I generally agree with the sentiment that more investments in research at the math-biology intersection will further our ability to understand biology better.