The Thomistic Institute The Measure of All Things? Rethinking Constants and Replicability in the Life Sciences – Prof. Santiago Schnell
Oct 15, 2025
Prof. Santiago Schnell, a prominent mathematical biologist and dean at Notre Dame, discusses critical issues in life sciences measurement and replicability. He emphasizes how precise measurements enhance scientific modeling, drawing on historical examples from Copernicus to Newton. Schnell reveals alarming variability in enzyme kinetics reporting and the importance of replicability as science's gold standard. He advocates for curating better datasets and launching interlaboratory studies to improve measurement practices and collaboration between philosophy and quantitative biology.
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Systematic Curation Reveals Better Consistency
- A systematic curation of 28,561 papers produced a cleaner database (Sario BioArchive) for reanalysis.
- With careful filtering, replicated measurements show much tighter correlations than raw literature aggregates.
Controlled Conditions Improve Agreement
- When the same enzyme, substrate, organism and assay details are controlled, reported Km values show a correlation around 0.8.
- That implies typical literature variability reduces to about two orders of magnitude under strict matching.
Reporting Gaps Drive Replicability Failure
- Major causes of irreproducible enzyme data include incomplete reporting and omitted experimental details.
- Popular guidelines exist but many groups omit key items like enzyme concentration or units, impeding replication.