Towards philosophical foundations of Systems Biology: introduction

The chapter discusses systems biology and philosophical foundations associated with it. The aim of systems biology is to understand how functional properties and behavior of living organisms are brought about by the interactions of their constituents. It treats cells as organized, or organizing, molecular systems having both molecular and cellular properties. It is concerned with how life or the functional properties thereof, which are not yet in the molecules, emerge from the particular organization and interactions among its molecular processes. It uses models to describe particular cells, and generalizes over various cell types and organisms to arrive at new theories of cells as molecular systems. Most biologists use reductionist strategies in some way or another. The term “reductionism” in systems biology is used to refer to the research strategy of trying to understand complex systems by studying their parts, and the claim that a particular scientific theory has been reduced to another theory according to a particular paradigm of how theories can be reduced to each other. In the alternative antireductionistic or holistic approach, complex wholes are considered not to be understandable from the mere knowledge of the behavior of the parts in isolation.