> Yet, we know with near certainty that an engineer, or even a trained repairman could fix the radio. What makes the differ- ence? I think it is the languages t

> Yet, we know with near certainty that an engineer, or even a trained repairman could fix the radio. What makes the differ- ence? I think it is the languages that these two groups use (Figure 3). Biologists summarize their results with the help of all- too-well recognizable diagrams, in which a favorite protein is placed in the middle and connected to everything else with two- way arrows. Even if a diagram makes overall sense (Figure 3A), it is usually useless for a quantitative analysis, which limits its predictive or investigative value to a very narrow range. The lan- guage used by biologists for verbal communications is not bet- ter and is not unlike that used by stock market analysts. Both are vague (e.g., “a balance between pro- and antiapoptotic Bcl-2 proteins appears to control the cell viability, and seems to correlate in the long term with the ability to form tumors”) and avoid clear predictions. This thought-provoking essay nevertheless makes an apples-and-oranges comparison. Let's try another experiment. Present a radio repair technician with car (ICE) that cranks but won't start. Give the technician, who has zero previous experience, no documentation or training and just watch what happens. I'm going to guess that the technician will follow something that looks a lot like the approach used by the biologists in the essay. Disassembly. Manipulation of components in isolation. Hypothesis of function. Hypothesis validation. Rinse and repeat. The reason the comparison doesn't work is not some variation of vitalism (the author brings up as one objection). The reason the radio technician can solve one problem (broken radio) and not the other (cranking no start) is not language or vitalism or anything else. It's the simple fact that when faced with a broken radio, the technician uses a model that works. It reflects reality and stands up to the harshest scrutiny. The technician doesn't get that model through induction, it's handed down by those who created the system. And to be fair, the manufacturer helps by building its product to code, rather than some hazy spectrum of possible codes. The author tries to make a case for "formal" approaches by which it seems like he's talking about mathematical approaches. But I think this misses the point. Trying to understand a defect in an alien system poses a conundrum: science teaches us to break the system down into parts or "systems", but there are many ways to do that. Even if we hit on the right fracture points we easily lose the connections that made the whole work.