Re: The STEM quote I most wish I'd made is:

[tobyink]

I only recently found out that the M is supposed to stand for mathematics; I'd always figured it was medicine and that mathematics was included implicitly as the foundation for all the others.

[LanX]

> and that mathematics was included implicitly as the foundation for all the others.

From my experience this would exclude medicine.

(NOW I'm nasty :)

PS: FWIW the corresponding German term is MINT

• Mathematics
• "Informatik" ( = Computer Science)
• Natural Sciences
• Technology

I mostly hear it in connection with phrases like "I always wished my child would go study at a MINT faculty..."

[tobyink]

There is some mathematics directly involved in medicine, such as calculating doses based on patient weight.

But it's mostly indirect. Medicine is based on biology. Biology is based on organic chemistry. Chemistry is the study of the effects of physics on atoms. And physics is maths using energy and matter instead of numbers.

[LanX]

> But it's mostly indirect. Medicine is based on biology.

To put this in context: Most questions about Bioinformatics here come from biologists who switched to programming to avoid (financial) starvation.

Nuff said ;-)

Medical research requires lots of statistics, and I'm too polite to repeat what befriended pharmacologists have to say about the mathematical skills of physicians.