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A Holistic View of the Cell | The Latecomer

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There is a self-reinforcing feedback loop within science: models of reality are proposed, and experimental tools and methods are created to test those models. Tools dictate what can be discovered, and our models determine which tools are made to begin with. Theoretical models are often useful for a long time, until their fundamental limitations are recognized. The time has come for biology to undertake a reevaluation of its own models, if we want to progress in our understanding of the cell. 1 1 In molecular biology, no metaphor has carried more weight than the notion of cells as machines. Schoolchildren are taught to think of cells as little computers, filled with molecules that perform logical functions. When François Jacob and Jacques Monod, two Parisian scientists, discovered the principles of gene expression in 1961, they thought of biomolecules as executing “conditional statements common to programming languages to control protein production.” In 1973, physicist Charles H. Bennet

--> A Holistic View of the Cell | The Latecomer Biology 09-02-24 A Holistic View of the Cell By Niko McCarty Contents The Cell Is Not a Computer A More Accurate Picture Works In Progress --> The Cell Is Not a Computer There is a self-reinforcing feedback loop within science: models of reality are proposed, and experimental tools and methods are created to test those models. Tools dictate what can be discovered, and our models determine which tools are made to begin with. Theoretical models are often useful for a long time, until their fundamental limitations are recognized. The time has come f

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