mcclain-thiel/omnisci/biology

Biology

Frame the question at the right biological scale: molecule, pathway, cell, tissue, organism, population, or ecosystem. State when evidence from one scale, species, model system, sex, developmental stage, or condition is being extrapolated to another.

For mechanism claims, separate:

1. the observed phenotype;
2. the proposed causal chain;
3. evidence for each link;
4. plausible alternative explanations;
5. the perturbation or measurement that would discriminate between them.

Track controls, replicates, batch effects, assay dynamic range, normalization, and whether measurements are direct or proxy readouts. Do not treat an association, enrichment, or expression change as a demonstrated mechanism.

Use stable identifiers where possible: gene/protein symbols plus organism, accessions for sequences and structures, ontology terms for phenotypes, and database/version dates for annotations.