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“The nature of the problems being formulated and addressed by systems biology creates interdependence among researchers in engineering, applied mathematics, computing, and biosciences. In this context, the prefix “trans” signifies that this enterprise seeps into, penetrates, specific prior practices of the mother fields and opens an emergent problem space with multiple possibilities for interaction and integration. I have characterized the problem space of systems biology as an adaptive problem space in that, as with the systems it investigates, adaptation of the researchers is a process of continually revising and reconfiguring knowledge, methods, and so forth as they learn and gain experience. Research in adaptive problem spaces is driven by complex interdisciplinary problems, and these require that the individuals themselves achieve a measure of hybridization in methods, concepts, models, materials – in how they think and how they act.”
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Suggested Readings by Nancy J. Nersessian
Chandrasekharan, S., & Nersessian, N. J. (2015). Building cognition: The construction of external representations for discovery. Cognitive Science, 39, 1727–1763.
MacLeod, M., & Nersessian, N. J. (2014). Strategies for coordinating experimentation and modeling in integrative systems biology. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution, 322, 230–239.
MacLeod, M., & Nersessian, N. J. (2015). Modeling systems-level dynamics: Understanding without mechanistic explanation in integrative systems biology. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 49, 1–11.
Acknowledgements
This research was conducted with support of the US National Science Foundation grant DRL097394084. I appreciate the support of a fellowship from The Institute for Advanced Study in Media Cultures of Computational Simulation (MECS), Lueneburg, Germany while writing the paper and the comments of Miles MacLeod on the penultimate draft.
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Nersessian, N.J. (2017). Systems Biology Modeling Practices: Reflections of a Philosopher-Ethnographer. In: Green, S. (eds) Philosophy of Systems Biology. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47000-9_20
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