I (mis)sent his out rather earlier, so some points have been made by
others. However.....
> At the end of his really useful post in response to my reading of
> Kacser, Athel asks if I have any insight into why MCA has not cought
> on in the States.
Imputing reasons for this type of phenomenon is always difficult, but
a major driver I am sure was that the originators of MCA were
geographically located in Europe and simply didn't (and probably in
some cases couldn't) travel to the USA very much. So given in addition
that most Amercians prefer to read and cite US journals, a better
dissemination this side of the pond was inevitable.
The same historical pattern was exactly seen regarding the diffusion
of knowledge of Mitchell's ideas and the chemiosmotic coupling
hypothesis.
> In the US, the typical response to theoretical biology is summed up
> in a phrase from my interview with Fran Ganong, then president of
> the American Physiological Society, when I was a graduate student
> regaling him with the wonders of physiological modeling. He pushed
> back in his chair and said, "Physiology is an experimental science
> and mathematics has no place in it."
He is not alone:
"Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of
chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and
contrary to the spirit of chemistry......If mathematical analysis
should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry - an aberration which
is happily almost impossible - it would occasion a rapid and
widespread degeneration of that science." A. Comte, Philosophie
Positive, 1830.
> So my tentative diagnosis, subject to feedback from the newsgroup,
> is that MCA has not become a mainstream tool because you publish
> most of your best work in journals read only by other theoreticians.
> I completely understand the pressures that make this desirable, but
> I have NEVER met a bench biologist who reads JTB. Since 99% of
> biologists are bench biologists, your choice of journals and
> meetings assures that the mainstream will never hear your message.
>> To make MCA a mainstream biological tool will require only one
> thing. You have to use it to solve an important biological problem
> that cannot be solved by experiment alone. And you have to publish
> the result where bench biologists will see it. (One man's opinion)
Well at least in Europe a tradition has emerged in which quite a
fraction of the theoretical work is published in (or at least
submitted to) EJB, where the experimentalists are free to ignore it.
So I think we have to say that the community is very much TRYING to
interest the experimentalists (ditto the motivation in part for the
BioThermoKinetics group/meetings).
My own prejdice, as fok will know, is that wider dissemination
really relies upon making available tools which Joe Public can use.
The history of spreadsheets (software for) is a perfect example.
>> I have posted a message about MCA on the BioInformatics Services
> Computational Biology Forum (there's a link to this on my website)
> and have encouraged my colleagues to read something about MCA and
> come visit your newsgroup.
>> My impression is that there is a massive convergence of schools of
> biological modeling that is underway right now, and I think the
> point of convergence is functional genomics. I think this is a
> really great time to be in biological modeling and I'm pleased to
> have encountered all of you on my own personal fork in the road.
And as to the importance of moedlling in functional genomics, I am
with you all the way.
>> Regards,
> Bob
> --
> Robert D. Phair, Ph.D. rphair at ix.netcom.com> BioInformatics Services http://www.webcom.com/rphair> Partnering and Outsourcing for Computational Biology
Best wishes,
Douglas.
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*Edward Llwyd Building Fax: +44 1970 622354 *
*Institute of Biological Sciences *
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