Ponies, Joints, Complexity and the Method of Indifference

Abstract

An important discipline in biomedical science is the repair of damaged organs by in vitro cultured differentaited stem cells. This article evaluates an article in this field, entitled "The complexity of joint regeneration", by Diloloksumpan et al. (2021), who described a regeneration experiment of artificial damage of the joint of ponies. The experiment failed an I describe the possible cause of this failure by discussing the design of the experiment in the light of J.S.Mill's Method of Difference, published in 1848. I continue with a discussion of the concept of complexity that was introduced by the authors of the paper, by pointing out that three types of complexity may be distinguished; one of these is complicatedness which characterizes the assumed complexity of the joint experiment. I propose that this complicatedness can be solved by the use of the method of difference.