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As a coder, I find it a bit frustrating how often explanations in biology contain fuzzy phrases like "plays a role in" or "is required for" or "works together w
by xg15 4y ago
As a coder, I find it a bit frustrating how often explanations in biology contain fuzzy phrases like "plays a role in" or "is required for" or "works together with" or "modulates the activity of" - without ever expected what role it plays, why it is required or how it works together.
So props to them for going a bit more into detail here - and also highlighting that the reason for the fuzzy phrases can often be that we literally don't know the details: The empirical basis may be "if this thing is removed then this other thing won't work", without us necessarily knowing why this is the case.
- kevviiinn 4y agoIt isn't unknown its just complicated. There are numerous proteins involved, such as a protein that detects the poly A tail and if not present will degrade the RNA by cleavage.
- sublinear 4y agoI think you'll find similar bullshittery in the details of every topic that isn't math. Think of it like finding "TODO" comments in old code.
- eropple 4y agoI mean, historically mathematics have had areas full of "HACK:" comments, too--ones retroactively applied to the whole of Newtonian physics, even, but it's still useful enough that we keep it around!
- af3d 4y agoNewtonian physics is not "a hack". It yields very precise results for simple gravitational interactions, at least up to the point where relativistic effects begin to dominate. Even Einstein's equations are not 100% "perfect". All mathematical models have their limitations. (Although some do produce better approximations than others.)
- eropple 4y agoA hack is in the eye of the beholder, and many hacks are load-bearing and totally fine for the entire timespan for which the thing they're stashed within is expected to be useful. I agree with you that all mathematical models have their limitations--but the choice to use a good-enough one is, over sufficient time and distance, a tradeoff that can be described as such.
- sublinear 4y agoAll I meant is that the approximations in math are in the assumptions which is far easier to deal with in the grander scheme of things.
- eropple 4y agoAssumptions? Don't worry; we've got those too! if I had a nickel for all the times I've seen somebody pick 1 for "0, 1, is N" input cases? ;)
- madhadron 4y agoThe other side of this is: what constitutes an explanation? What formal structure that you express observations in seems like knowing what's going on to you? Formal structures in fields tend to be matched to what the experimental abilities of the field are. In programming, we designed our systems to give us what seem like hard bottoms in our formal models. Most programmers don't reason below the level of their structured programming language. Of the ones that do, most treat the processor instructions as a hard bottom. There are layers down and down until you have physicists working on semiconductor properties, but we have intentionally designed the layers so that you can comfortably rest on them. In biology any formal structure you think in is logically poised over the abyss. What pins it in place is not that it is on philosophical bedrock, but the observations and experiments that the formal structure summarizes.