Geometry and Genetics

The application of quantitative methods to biological problems faces the choice of how much detail to include and the generality of the conclusions. Both routine data analysis and airy pronouncements that have nothing to say about everything are to be avoided. The middle ground entails some use phenomenology, a well-used approach in both high and low energy physics. A sampling of examples will be presented from my work in the area of developmental biology, to give a flavor of what is possible. They include experiments in synthetic embryology where human stem cells are coaxed into making patterns and structures similar to real embyos, use of modern (ie post 1960) mathematics to enumerate categories of dynamical behaviors, and a bit of computational evolution to address the question of what pattern forming systems can be evolved by incremental changes.