TITLE: Is Mathematical Biology analogous to Mathematical Physics?
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: Mathematical Physics seeks to create mathematical tools and methods to solve physics problems. Is mathematical biology roughly analogous? Is mathematical biology the discipline that seeks to create mathematical tools and methods to solve biological problems? Thanks

REPLY [6 votes]: Yes, analogous in the sense you are asking (see, for example, the 2-volume Mathematical Biology by J. Murray).  However:
I. M. Gelfand, a mathematician who worked in biomathematics and molecular biology, as well as many other fields in applied mathematics, is quoted as stating,
``Eugene Wigner wrote a famous essay on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences. He meant physics, of course. There is only one thing which is more unreasonable than the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in physics, and this is the unreasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics in biology.[1]'' -- Source