Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
5
On building reliable pictures with unreliable
data:
1
An evolutionary and developmental coda
for the new systems biology
William C. Wimsatt
SUMMARY
The new systems biology (NSB) is a cluster of methodological approaches for
the analysis of dynamical behavior in networks that sits at the confluence of
a number of disciplines. They are all now experiencing massive increases in
qualitatively new actual and potential interactions driven by the data explosions
in genomics and proteomics. I urge that developmental and evolutionary perspec-
tives provide particularly useful tools for the analysis of life systems in the NSB.
Their character as systems that must develop and evolve means that they possess
certain properties, in particular evolvability, genetic and environmental robust-
ness, and differential generative entrenchment for their parts. These properties
are themselves very general and robust. They also possess virtues that help to
ameliorate a problem of rapidly growing magnitude in the analysis of complex
living systems: that the data produced by high-throughput methods ('gene chips')
have very high error rates. Some of these errors are undoubtedly products of a
technology that is new, noisy, and needs further tuning. Some are almost cer-
tainly systematic and, by recognizing this, remediable. Knowledge of the general
kinds of systems we are dealing with can help with both.
1
This title is an homage to the famous paper of a similar name by John von Neumann, published posthumously
50 years ago, in 1956. Von Neumann's (1956) paper pioneered the consideration of reliability, in both organic
and computer design.
