Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
systems (e.g. the optimal extraction method for the transcriptome of
Streptomyces
coelicolor
- an organismwith an unusually high GC content - differs substantially
from that for the transcriptome of other organisms), we shall more or less ignore
these specifics and here concentrate on generic issues and methodologies.
4.3. The spiral of knowledge
We maintain that for systems biology as well as for science generally, scien-
tific thinking should consist of an interplay between (i) the mental worlds of
knowledge and ideas and (ii) the physical world of observations and sense-data.
Figure 3 sketches a straightforward view of the relationships between the two
worlds, which is usually described as a cyclic interplay between experimental
observation and theory, with induction on the basis of experimental observations
leading to new, more acute experiments testing the hypotheses. The new experi-
ments should then lead to a further adjustment of the intellectual world view and
good hypotheses that derive therefrom. We note then that functional genomics
without the systems biology dimension might remain in such a cycle of data
collection, pattern recognition and the generation of
ad hoc
empirical 'laws'
and hypotheses describing those data phenomenologically. The application of
OVER AND UNDERLYING THEORIES
KNOWLEDGE/
HYPOTHESIS
INDUCTION
DEDUCTION
OBSERVATIONS/
DATA
Figure 3
An iterative interplay between the world of ideas and the world of data as
the hallmark of both science and systems biology.
