I didn’t make it to the essay about Mendeleev that I mentioned earlier today… got sidetracked by an interesting comment piece by Professor Raymond Tallis in today’s Times about the public’s perception of science. It’s definitely worth a read and can be found here.

This led me to Sense about Science – a charity that provides a bridge between the front lines of science and the general public. The section on making sense of chemicals should be mandatory reading for everyone…

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

In his insightful review “”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science?ob=ArticleURL&udi=B6WSN-4MWYF5C-B&user=656666&coverDate=01%2F26%2F2007&rdoc=1&fmt=&orig=search&sort=d&view=c&acct=C000035599&version=1&urlVersion=0&userid=656666&md5=2870365ffcf286138287618e6197ef16">Morpheus Unbound: Reimagining the Morphogen Gradient", Arthur D Lander writes:

What distinguishes systems biology from earlier traditions is the tendency to define importance less in operational terms (e.g., necessary or sufficient to produce a behavior) than in terms of relevance to the goals of a system. In making this leap, systems biology inextricably binds itself to teleology (Lander, 2004). Indeed, without the presupposition of goals or purposes, the very notion of “system” itself is hollow.