Except that molecular biology is a perfect example of how causal inference in complex systems fails. Hidden context, uncontrolled experimental variables, pleot

Except that molecular biology is a perfect example of how causal inference in complex systems fails. Hidden context, uncontrolled experimental variables, pleotropic effects, experimental noise all conspire to produce conclusions that cannot be reproduced or if reproduced, cannot be generalised. The contrast with physics is stark - theoretical physicists predict experimental results (eg Higgs boson) many years before the experiment is performed. I don't think that in biology, we merely need to prove a succession of hypotheses to achieve the kind of explanatory causal models we want. A theoretical framework is needed, and at the moment, there is not even an outline of such a framework.