Criticism
An assumption (sometimes more sometimes less implicit) behind the preservation of a topological sub-structure is that it is of a particular functional importance. This assumption has recently been questioned. Some authors have argued that motifs, like bi-fan motifs, might show a variety depending on the network context, and therefore, structure of the motif does not necessarily determine function. Network structure certainly does not always indicate function; this is an idea that has been around for some time, for an example see the Sin operon.
Most analyses of motif function are carried out looking at the motif operating in isolation. Recent research provides good evidence that network context, i.e. the connections of the motif to the rest of the network, is too important to draw inferences on function from local structure only — the cited paper also reviews the criticisms and alternative explanations for the observed data. An analysis of the impact of a single motif module on the global dynamics of a network is studied in. Yet another recent work suggests that certain topological features of biological networks naturally give rise to the common appearance of canonical motifs, thereby questioning whether frequencies of occurrences are reasonable evidence that the structures of motifs are selected for their functional contribution to the operation of networks.
Read more about this topic: Network Motif
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I.- men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep- hole and missing laundry list school.... Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)