[minifridge]

Biological systems have also designs that emerged through evolution. Although the complexity may seem at different scales, the main difference is the measurements you can do. Both biological and electrical circuits are dynamic systems that have designs that gives them emergent functional properties.

As the article describes imagine having the list of radio components instead only instead of their topology (wiring diagram). The problem of figuring out how a radio works with this information, if youbknow little about their design, becomes quite similar with how figuring out how a biological system works.

The absence of a design diagram and our inability to measure components at the molecular level without disturbing the state of a system is the main reason bilogical systems are so challenging to understand.

[fastaguy88]

I am a bit more comfortable saying "Biological systems also have 'solutions' that emerged through evolution." That is certainly true. But unlike designers, evolution is perfectly happy to re-invent the wheel (even if it is a less functional wheel). So different, evolutionarily independent, processes may provide the same solution, and of course solutions are constantly re-used to provide slightly different solutions. So I'm not sure that "complexity" is the hardest problem, though it certainly doesn't make things easy. The diversity of solutions for the same problem makes generalization/abstraction even more difficult.