ArticleMolecular biology of the cell2013
Biology is more theoretical than physics.
Article in Molecular biology of the cell, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Biology Needs Philosophy, But What Philosophy?Bioscience · 2026Review
- Gasocrine hypothesis - a potential supplement to cell theory.Acta biochimica Polonica · 2025Article
- From Gregor Mendel to Eric Davidson: Mathematical Models and Basic Principles in Biology.Journal of computational biology : a journal of computational molecular cell biology · 2019Article
- Integrative biological simulation praxis: Considerations from physics, philosophy, and data/model curation practices.Cellular logistics · 2017Article
- Article
- A modular analysis of the auxin signalling network.PloS one · 2015Article
- Nucleosomes, transcription, and probability.Molecular biology of the cell · 2014Article
- Beware the tail that wags the dog: informal and formal models in biology.Molecular biology of the cell · 2014Article
- Models in biology: 'accurate descriptions of our pathetic thinking'.BMC biology · 2014Article
- Time-scale separation--Michaelis and Menten's old idea, still bearing fruit.The FEBS journal · 2014Review
- Cell responses only partially shape cell-to-cell variations in protein abundances in Escherichia coli chemotaxis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The word "theory" is used in at least two senses--to denote a body of widely accepted laws or principles, as in "Darwinian theory" or "quantum theory," and to suggest a speculative hypothesis, often relying on mathematical analysis, that has not been experimentally confirmed. It is often said that there is no place for the second kind of theory in biology and that biology is not theoretical but based on interpretation of data. Here, ideas from a previous essay are expanded upon to suggest, to the contrary, that the second kind of theory has always played a critical role and that biology, therefore, is a good deal more theoretical than physics.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.