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Models in biology: ‘accurate descriptions of our pathetic thinking’ (2014)
- auvrw 11y agoidk.. we really haven't had empirical (e.g. molecular biology) data for as long as physical (e.g. position of the planets). and even w/ the position of galaxies or fluid flow, there it's not clear what can and can't be "derived from fundamental laws." so I'm not sure this is unique to bio. also, the title grates on me. would prefer "our incomplete maths" or something.
- jhbadger 11y agoTrue. But it is really worth remembering (as the editorial notes) that math in biology is nothing new and fields like classical genetics were highly mathematical before molecular biology existed.
- AnonNo15 11y agoThere are ongoing efforts to build accurate cellular models, incorporating all processes and networks to such level that predictions can be made. There was a rather big breakthrough in 2012, when first bacterial model was published.
- danhorner 11y agoI loved this review. This is systems biology at its best: simple hypotheses let us build models that explain/predict emergent behaviour. How cool to explain that a biological oscillator can produce periodically repeating structures during development! And the title is spot on: without getting hung up on the details we can look for structural insights. There's no shame in the "pathetic thinking". Keeping it simple eliminates the perils of overfitting.