ArticleMolecular biology of the cell2014
Beware the tail that wags the dog: informal and formal models in biology.
Article in Molecular biology of the cell, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reconstruction of endosomal organization and function by a combination of ODE and agent-based modeling strategies.Biology direct · 2018Article
- Transcriptional precision and accuracy in development: from measurements to models and mechanisms.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2017Review
- Agents and networks to model the dynamic interactions of intracellular transport.Cellular logistics · 2017Article
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
Informal models have always been used in biology to guide thinking and devise experiments. In recent years, formal mathematical models have also been widely introduced. It is sometimes suggested that formal models are inherently superior to informal ones and that biology should develop along the lines of physics or economics by replacing the latter with the former. Here I suggest to the contrary that progress in biology requires a better integration of the formal with the informal.
Indexed as
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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.