Best programming language for biology students?

[James Mahaffy]

Folks:

Can you give me a feel for what is the computer language that
most biology graduate students program in?   When I was in grad school in
the late 70's it seemed that FORTRAN was still the most widely
used program.  We have a course at the college that is an
introduction to programming that uses Basic and FORTRAN.  There
seems to be less of a demand for the FORTRAN from our engineering
department and this next semester the course will emphasize
mostly BASIC (a structured basic - Visual Basic for Windows) in
the course.  Should the Biology department push for keeping the
FORTRAN or is there another language that we should emphasize. 
We do have a also have a C language course if that is the
direction the biologists are moving. 

Any feedback would be appreciated. 

--
:
James F. Mahaffy                   e-mail: mahaffy at dordt.edu
Biology Department                 phone: 712 722-6279
Dordt College                      FAX 712 722-1198
Sioux Center, Iowa 51250