I think maps like this beautifully illustrate how complicated biology is. Now add in things like what the parent mentions such as cell state, external signallin

I think maps like this beautifully illustrate how complicated biology is. Now add in things like what the parent mentions such as cell state, external signalling systems and it gets worse. Much of this chart was mapped out using E. coli, S. cerevisiae (budding yeast) and other single celled organisms. It gets much much more complicated when you have multi-celled organisms. It also gets much more complicated when you recognize that many of those arrows are equilibria, so the reaction can actually go backwards under certain circumstances. And virtually every signalling system controlling these activities is an equilibrium. The interaction of all these systems makes biology incredibly difficult to understand in the kind of rigorous, systemic, mathematical way we would like to.