Herbert M Sauro wrote:
[...]
> One thing his [David Garfinkel's]
> efforts taught me was that simulation in a vacum of formal theory is almost
> useless, unless perhaps you're an engineer in which case you might only be
> interested in input and outputs. But as a scientist one needs to understand
> what's going on inside and for that one needs some sort of organising
> framework, and for me that turned out to be MCA/MCT.
[...]
I am always trying to understand more about the important work that's
been done by people belonging to the Metabolic Control Theory/Analysis
school of thought. After having read Herbert's statement above, I am
now wondering exactly in what sense does MCA contribute to a greater
"understand[ing of] what's going on inside". I'd like to contrast what
Herbert wrote with the following statement, taken from Athel's FAQ page:
"Metabolic control analysis tends to treat the kinetic properties of the
component enzymes as a black box. Some authors have been very critical
of this, suggesting that shedding light on mechanism is the only reason
for studying kinetics in the first place. [...] Studies of biochemical
kinetics have been dominated for nearly a century by an interest in
molecular mechanisms, but for understanding how whole pathways behave it
has been found useful to decrease the emphasis on mechanism. [...]"
Am I missing something? Isn't this "black box" approach focusing at
"inputs and outputs" and not paying too much attention to "what's going
on inside"? I believe that every step in Garfinkel's simulations was
formulated in terms of the underlying *mechanism*.
Somebody has asked previously in this thread why isn't MCA/MCT more
represented in textbooks. Could it be that people (including myself, I
must admit) are not ready to give up the emphasis on "understanding" in
the sense of "mechanisms" (i.e., "*what* is going on inside") ?
-- Petr
_____________________________________________________________________
P e t r K u z m i c, Ph.D. mailto:pkuzmic at biokin.com
BioKin Ltd. * Software and Consulting http://www.biokin.com
