From owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Tue Dec 4 10:12:40 2001 Return-Path: Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87E1117A95 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:12:39 +0000 (GMT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id F393C17B10 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:12:29 +0000 (GMT) Received: from niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (niobium [193.62.192.41]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id E09BE17B0C for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:12:24 +0000 (GMT) Received: (from news@localhost) by niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.8.8) id KAA28536 for btk-mca-list@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:09:36 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk: news set sender to using -f From: aflaloc@bgumail.bgu.ac.il (claude aflalo) X-Newsgroups: bionet.metabolic-reg Subject: Re: Wholes and parts Date: 4 Dec 2001 10:09:34 -0000 Organization: BIOSCI/MRC Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre Lines: 82 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Complaints-To: news@net.bio.net X-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9990D17B27 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:09:26 +0000 (GMT) X-Received: from doarim.bgu.ac.il (bgusoft.bgu.ac.il [132.72.138.92]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2D27A17B17 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:09:19 +0000 (GMT) X-Received: from sansana.bgu.ac.il ([132.72.138.160]) by doarim.bgu.ac.il with ESMTP id <20011204100917.BAYK25942.doarim@sansana.bgu.ac.il>; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 12:09:17 +0200 X-Newsgroups: bionet.metabolic-reg,bionet.biology.computational X-Sender: aflaloc@sansana.bgu.ac.il X-To: "(Athel Cornish-Bowden)" X-In-Reply-To: To: btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sender: owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Hello Athel and everybody, I first apologize for the possible cross postings. On 3 Dec 2001, (Athel Cornish-Bowden) wrote: > [pudic and somewhat embarrassed snip...] > > "We are then left, once again, with the question: 'In today's biology > dominated by the _ethos_ of mechanism, who will pay for the long-term need > to know?' A researcher interested in questioning the role of wholes over > parts stands a very poor chance of obtaining support for that kind of > question..." > [re-snip...] > "But one thing is certain. If you want to understand the whole you need to > study the whole". (Is that right Douglas? more or less what he said, > anyway). > > athel There might be another way yet: study the interfaces between the parts, which represent the glue that makes the whole what it is. This has yielded some valuable insights in the shift from enzymes to metabolic pathways, but there still are many lacunes in many more dimensions in the intricate way to the whole. Some would say these sections are still 'dominated by the _ethos_ of mechanism', but isn't that the critical oh-so-missing link? It seems also these topics are naturally related to the new "centers of gravity" of modern biology: control and regulation. These became so important that some bad tongues expressed the whish, it shoudn't be left to biologists (culturally intoxicated by that '_ethos_ of mechanism') to study... I think otherwise. and if 'Mohamed doesn't come to the mountain, then the mountain will come to Mohamed'. This place represents not only the cradle of the above-mentionned conceptual change, but it should be assertively instrumental in its consolidation and the recruitment of new participants, resources and, yes, fields and even disciplines. There are many efforts invested by many good people out there who are barely aware of each other. Some of these even have initiated a long awaited organization step. Following is a list of URL's to different groups/software packages which are/should work in coordination. I realize that most of us are aware of most groups, and that the list is far from complete, but that's a start... http://gepasi.dbs.aber.ac.uk/btk/home.htm http://www.cellml.org/public/about/what_is_cellml.html http://www.cds.caltech.edu/erato/ http://www.nrcam.uchc.edu/ http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/comp-cell/StochSim.html http://mitpress.mit.edu/ICSB2000/stelling.html http://www.e-cell.org/ http://websites.ntl.com/~igor.goryanin http://www-aig.jpl.nasa.gov/public/mls/ http://www.lbl.gov/~aparkin/ Many of the groups have their own distribution list, which should somehow unite. Again, two representative newsgroups are: btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk sysbio@caltech.edu How all this can be done is a real problem... Season Greetings, Claude Claude Aflalo ########################## Phones: Office 972-8-6472118 #### Unit for Science Teaching/Dept. of Life Sciences Lab 972-8-6472119 Ben Gurion University of the Negev Fax 972-8-6472890 P.O.Box 653 email: aflaloc@bgumail.bgu.ac.il Beer Sheva 84105 Israel ### URL: http://www.bgu.ac.il/~aflaloc/aflalo.html --- .