Introduction: Issues About Robustness in the Practice of Biological Sciences

Emergence in Complex Physiological Processes: The Case of Vitamin B12 Functions in Erythropoiesis

“…In this sense, robustness is a target of natural selection and can be listed among the features that enable evolutionary change. This is an example that Huneman [26] labels with the term "explanatory reversibility" [24]: "Thus, with respect to evolution, robustness may be seen as an aspect to be explained by (explanandum) or as a feature that explains (explanans) evolutionary change and/or the particular evolutionary trajectories that are discovered in the history of life. Robustness as an explanandum connects with other evolutionary explananda such as complexity, modularity or evolvability".…”

“…Network approaches allow us to account for biological regulation in terms/trough weak (but robust) emergent properties and allow us to link the components of our analysis. Giuliani wrote that this allows for the detection of a clear "signature of robustness", i.e., the ability of a system to keep different scales of response to environmental stimuli separated [24] 8 . This offers two different sides of the explanation.…”

“…The literature on robustness is wide in scope and relevance, as we can identify different kinds of robust behavior. Nevertheless, robustness can be seen as a useful "bridging notion" that allows for the integration of practical and theoretical aspects of a given phenomenon [24]. Generally, we can define robustness as the capacity of a given phenomenon to remain stable within given perturbations.…”