The multicomponent system that's our body (or other multicellular organism), requires a much more sophisticated brain than the one we are endowed with to comprehend and understand. The natural selection, through which our brain has evolved required only simple two or three component analysis and intuitive understanding our world. To make sense of our surrounding and survive within the environment, it only had to evolve, compute and analyze a small number of variables that are sensed by our limited sensory systems. And as pointed out by the physicists and cosmologists, our sensory system is quite limited in sensing only a very small spectrum of signals. Except for the chemical senses (smell and taste), which is responsible for detecting complex chemicals of different varieties, our auditory and visual capacities are very limited in sensing the electromagnetic wave and sound wave spectrum. Furthermore, we only use maximum three sensory inputs at one time to compute and interpret any object that we encounter. So, our brain has not developed abilities to handle multi-component analysis and interpretation. This leads to a very common natural behavior of profiling and trying to find patterns and use previous understanding of the detected pattern to predict its behavior. A great example is our common understanding of quantum mechanics. Since its discovery followed by successful application in everyday technology, it has been one among many difficult concepts of physics to comprehend and understand by common people, because it deals with a microscopic world that none of our sensory system allow us to delve into. We have developed sensors and detectors, which enormously extends our senses, but our brain is not equipped to handle them resulting in the lack of general understanding and appreciation of these profound concepts.
I'd argue that the understanding of biology is now facing the same challenges. Due to historical reasons and partly because of its complexities, there was a large push to study simple life forms so that we can understand the basic common principles of life. We studied viruses, bacteria, worms, flies etc. However, due to the evolutionary origins of each species that we have studied and the natural selection that have shaped them, only a handful of principles can be applied to humans that we want to study most. In fact the most used model organism to understand human physiology and diseases has been mouse, and these days, in the field arguments are raging why a laboratory mouse, even a humanized mouse is not a very good model. On top of which add the various genetic and physiological differences we all have as individuals - the path forward looks quite abysmal. And it is the humans and the improvement of humanity is one of the most coveted goals of biology.
This brings me to my final point: why we need to go beyond our brain's capacity. Modern biology is now endowing us to decipher and sense extraordinarily large volume of information about various integral parameters of life in the form of genetic, behavioral and clinical information. It is like the revolution in ground and space telescope technology to revolutionize the modern astronomy and provide us with a better understanding of the origin and the fate of the universe. But processing and interpreting this information is beyond our poor brain's capacity. Therefore, the only way out is to change the approach. We may need a new visionary in the likes of Charles Darwin, with superior metal ability, or use computational model approach. What I'd envision that there could be an empirical computational model that can be built, where all the known parameters can be included and the rate constants for their interactions can be constantly improved upon to reflect the reality. Some such models have been created and have been shown their utility in explaining single signaling pathway outcomes and at the single cell level. However, these ultimate models have to be built based on inputs from all biologists using wiki principles. They have to be peer reviewed and curated for including information on interaction rate constants. I think the most difficult part of this effort/initiative would be the funding mechanism. There is no chance for a for profit organization that would fund such initiative. Therefore, it has to be funded by the government/s and in the scope of something similar to a Manhattan Project in biology. In my mind, it is probably the only way to make sense of biology and generate verifiable outcomes, which can ultimately benefit humanity and handle complex diseases such as cancer.
I'd argue that the understanding of biology is now facing the same challenges. Due to historical reasons and partly because of its complexities, there was a large push to study simple life forms so that we can understand the basic common principles of life. We studied viruses, bacteria, worms, flies etc. However, due to the evolutionary origins of each species that we have studied and the natural selection that have shaped them, only a handful of principles can be applied to humans that we want to study most. In fact the most used model organism to understand human physiology and diseases has been mouse, and these days, in the field arguments are raging why a laboratory mouse, even a humanized mouse is not a very good model. On top of which add the various genetic and physiological differences we all have as individuals - the path forward looks quite abysmal. And it is the humans and the improvement of humanity is one of the most coveted goals of biology.
This brings me to my final point: why we need to go beyond our brain's capacity. Modern biology is now endowing us to decipher and sense extraordinarily large volume of information about various integral parameters of life in the form of genetic, behavioral and clinical information. It is like the revolution in ground and space telescope technology to revolutionize the modern astronomy and provide us with a better understanding of the origin and the fate of the universe. But processing and interpreting this information is beyond our poor brain's capacity. Therefore, the only way out is to change the approach. We may need a new visionary in the likes of Charles Darwin, with superior metal ability, or use computational model approach. What I'd envision that there could be an empirical computational model that can be built, where all the known parameters can be included and the rate constants for their interactions can be constantly improved upon to reflect the reality. Some such models have been created and have been shown their utility in explaining single signaling pathway outcomes and at the single cell level. However, these ultimate models have to be built based on inputs from all biologists using wiki principles. They have to be peer reviewed and curated for including information on interaction rate constants. I think the most difficult part of this effort/initiative would be the funding mechanism. There is no chance for a for profit organization that would fund such initiative. Therefore, it has to be funded by the government/s and in the scope of something similar to a Manhattan Project in biology. In my mind, it is probably the only way to make sense of biology and generate verifiable outcomes, which can ultimately benefit humanity and handle complex diseases such as cancer.
