“Macroscopic pattern analysis” based on formal analogies as a scientific methodology for complex systems

Abstract

AbstractBioprocess engineering at present concentrates on the enormous problems in the environment. What is therefore needed is a sound methodology, which should be based on the interactions between the physiology of biological reaction networks and physical processes in the environment and which should be an analogy to bioreactor performance. The conventional methodology is empirically oriented, using pilot plant data for the experimental estimates of process economics, where all further details are elucidated following the mechanistic approach on the microscopic level based on assumed mechanisms (causalities). According to the new view, the new systems‐based methodology uses mathematical models as approximations and includes all the interactions. Pilot plant data are needed for model falsification, using analogies on the formal macroscopic level. Bioreactor scale‐up as one application is a more rapid procedure of reasonable accuracy, where both the biokinetics as well as the fluid dynamics are quantified using formal macroscopic analogies.Model consistency and plausibility are the basic criteria when using model computer simulations as a decisive aid, while experiments lose their central role and are on longer the basis for evaluating the scientific work; they are simply the basis of the researcher's intuition. Another typical feature of complex systems is that model parameters are interdependent. The final decisive fact will be the mental experiment (“thinking” with the left and right side of the brain), which can be supported using computer simulations. This evolutionary interplay between the three realities of thinking, experimenting and simulating leads to a holistic progress towards the better understanding of highly complex systems. It offers the solution to the problems, which is needed in future.