Managing complexity: model-building in systems biology and its challenges for philosophy of science

In the history of science there have been many conceptual crossings between the bios and téchne realms, as researchers have sought to use biology to inspire design or represent biology in terms of mechanical models. Philosophers have been comfortable describing the analogical relationships and their limitations between technological devices and biological organisms, and setting up the boundaries between them. However, technology and computational simulation are creating new interactions and fusions between bios and téchne in emergent quantitative biological elds like synthetic biology, systems biology and bioengineering that extend to practices of investigation themselves. Technology and the quantitative perspective that comes with it have become means of structuring both scienti c practice and scienti c understanding in novel ways that can address biological complexity .