Hi,

Maybe these two papers could interest you

Reed, M. C. Why Is Mathematical Biology So Hard? Notices of the AMS 51 (2004)

May, R. M. Uses and Abuses of Mathematics in Biology Science 303 (2004)

http://www.ams.org/notices/200403/comm-reed.pdf

http://umdberg.pbworks.com/f/Science2004-May-Math%2Bin%2Bbio.pdf

Joseph -

Math is an organized way to describe those natural processes. The natural processes came first, then the description: math.  [Do you count a mathematical statistician as OK when you asked for "experimental scientists?"    :-)    Actually I often felt I was experimenting, just not in a lab.]  

Cheers - Jim 

PS  -   But, on the other hand, regarding order, one might say that the description was always there, and that as Pythagoras may have said, "All is number." 

When a physical study is concerned and we can measure the necessary data, it is possible to reason with these numbers with well studied properties. Here mathematics has its laws and acceptable reasonning.

Your brain is a physical structure. Mathematics is a product of his physical activity. This is only a certain set of relationships between groups of physical structures (information). Regardless of the type of specific information carrier, it interactions are subject of common (physical) laws.

It does not matter whether you consider the topological relations between groups of neurons in the brain or between other objects in the Universe.

Evolving structure is changing upon contact with the chaotic environment. The most stable part of it is preserved maximum time. This phenomenon has long been known in physics and is called as long memory (see pink noise). Thus we get an internal model of the physical processes, including what is called mathematics.

Scale-invariant process predictable. So our world is knowable. It is subject of the laws, as rightly noted by Einstein. "God does not play dice."

Mathematics works with results based on logic and inventive reasoning, which have been completely proved and verified, without interfering external influences. The fact that such results match some expected assertions in other fields of science is a proof of the power of mathematical arguments.