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- three simplifying strategies
three simplifying strategies
- MATHEMATICS / QUANTIFICATION
- counting
- When you count a series of objects, there is an underlying assumption of a simplification and abstraction of reality that eliminates all the variability that is present in real systems in nature
- This is especially true in biology
- To count "objects you are making the assumption that the similarities between them are what matters and you can ignore the differences that are usually there
- So in applying the most basic ideas of mathematics, counting, we are already making a big assumption that abstracts away a lot of natural variability
- statistics
- once again, a lot of variability is simply bypassed
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- REDUCTION
- studying a part of a living system in isolation of the living system
- in vitro instead of
- in vivo
- We reduce the number of natural variables by restricting to an artificial lab environment
- Processes can work well within the non-natural, highly constrained test environment but the results may not match with the same process in the natural environment when all the natural variability is present
- ANALOGIES / METAPHORS