Systems Biology Phrase Book

Inspired by the brilliant Economics/Sociology Phrase Book by Jeffrey A. Smith and Kermit Daniel, I present a Systems Biology phrase book for translating from Normal Biology to Systems Biology and vice versa. This is a work in progress and will expand as I run across dumb phrases.

Biology to Systems Biology

Statistically significant => irreproducible

Highly statistically significant => tiny effect size

Model => cartoon

Mathematical model => one differential equation

Systems Biology to Biology

Model => ball of spaghetti

Big data => spurious correlation goldmine