Data without models merging with models without data - Systems Biology: Philosophical Foundations - page 209

of some structure and dynamics but as making it understandable (which in the
case of a large network boils down to giving a simplified picture of it), we
criticized the project of a 'realistic' representation of all metabolic processes
in a 1:1 manner as lacking explanatory power and, more generally, as being
epistemologically misguided. It regresses to the 'omic' approach by once again
offering 'complete' but physiologically uninterpreted data sets. In addition to
epistemological issues, we addressed the ontological question of how to define
the 'wholeness' of the systems investigated by top-down systems biology and
confirmed the diagnosis that a clear concept of wholeness is still missing. We
had to confine ourselves to discussing why it is insuffient to ground this concept
in reference to (sub)cellular compartments. We regard it as a primary demand
for systems biology to establish a sound concept of wholeness.
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