{"title":"Should biology put complexity first?","authors":"Philip Ball","doi":"10.1016/j.cels.2025.101197","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The dictum \"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler\" poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing damage to its complex nature? The answer might be found by relinquishing tidy but misleading stories that begin with genes and molecules and recognizing that even complex systems have generic principles.</p>","PeriodicalId":93929,"journal":{"name":"Cell systems","volume":" ","pages":"101197"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cell systems","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2025.101197","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The dictum "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler" poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing damage to its complex nature? The answer might be found by relinquishing tidy but misleading stories that begin with genes and molecules and recognizing that even complex systems have generic principles.