Systems Biology: Philosophical FoundationsFred Boogerd, Frank J. Bruggeman, Jan-Hendrik S. Hofmeyr, H.V. Westerhoff Systems biology is a vigorous and expanding discipline, in many ways a successor to genomics and perhaps unprecedented in its combination of biology with a great many other sciences, from physics to ecology, from mathematics to medicine, and from philosophy to chemistry. Studying the philosophical foundations of systems biology may resolve a longer standing issue, i.e., the extent to which Biology is entitled to its own scientific foundations rather than being dominated by existing philosophies. * Answers the question of what distinguishes the living from the non-living * An in-depth look to a vigorous and expanding discipline, from molecule to system * Explores the region between individual components and the system |
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Common terms and phrases
acid action potential approach autonomous systems behavior biochemical biochemistry biological systems biologists Boogerd bottom-up Bruggeman Cambridge causal cell biology cellular chemical chemistry coli complex systems components concentrations concept context cycle dynamics emergence environment enzyme equations evolution evolutionary example experimental fabrication feedback flux function Gánti genes genetic genomics glucose Hofmeyr hypotheses important interactions Journal kinetic Kitano lac operon living cell living organisms living systems mathematical mechanism mechanistic explanation membrane metabolic control analysis metabolic pathways metabolites Metabolomics methodology methods modules molecular biology molecules Moreno natural nonlinear omic Palsson parameter pathway modeling phenomena philosophy of biology Philosophy of Science physics Physiology principles processes properties proteins quantitative reactions reduction reductionism reductionist regulatory robust role Rosen Ruiz-Mirazo scientific selection self-fabricating self-organization sequence simulation specific strategy structure synthesis systems biology systeome theoretical theory thermodynamics top-down understanding University Press Westerhoff HV Wimsatt
Popular passages
Page 163 - Stated informally, the essence of this principle is that as the complexity of a system increases, our ability to make precise and yet significant statements about its behavior diminishes until a threshold is reached beyond which precision and significance (or relevance) become almost mutually exclusive characteristics.
Page 70 - Zhu, H., Bilgin, M., Bangham, R., Hall, D., Casamayor, A., Bertone, P., Lan, N., Jansen, R., Bidlingmaier, S., Houfek, T., Mitchell, T., Miller, P., Dean, RA, Gerstein, M., Snyder, M.
Page 293 - ... through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network" (Maturana and Varela, 1980, pp.
Page 304 - In such a natural product as this every part is thought as owing its presence to the agency of all the remaining parts, and also as existing for the sake of the others and of the whole, that is as an instrument, or organ.
Page 304 - ... serves to define what is meant as an organism"— namely, "an organized natural product is one in which every part is reciprocally both end and means. In such a product nothing is in vain, without an end, or to be ascribed to a blind mechanism of nature."7 Organisms, he continued, are the beings that "first afford objective reality to the conception of an end that is an end of nature and not a practical end.
Page 293 - An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components that produces the components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them...
Page 74 - The first of these was to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudice in judgments, and to accept in them nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it.
Page 74 - ... most in this Method was that I was certain by its means of exercising my reason in all things, if not perfectly, at least as well as was in my power. And besides this, I felt in making use of it that my mind gradually accustomed itself to conceive of its objects more accurately and distinctly; and not having restricted this Method to any particular matter, I promised myself to apply it as usefully to the difficulties of other sciences as I had done to those of Algebra.
Page 68 - Raamsdonk LM, Teusink B. Broadhurst D, Zhang N. Hayes A, Walsh MC, Berden JA, Brindle KM. Kell DB, Rowland JJ, Westerhoff HV, van Dam K, Oliver SG.
Page 68 - SG (2001) A functional genomics strategy that uses metabolome data to reveal the phenotype of silent mutations.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Systems Biology: Philosophical Foundations |
| Editors | Fred Boogerd, Frank J. Bruggeman, Jan-Hendrik S. Hofmeyr, H.V. Westerhoff |
| Publisher | Elsevier, 2007 |
| ISBN | 0080475272, 9780080475271 |
| Length | 360 pages |
| Subjects | › Computers / Bioinformatics Mathematics / Applied |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |