Slate recently had a series up on the use of mice as "model organisms." In particular, it put the spotlight of some limitations of extrapolating from a mouse to a man (or other species). This is in some ways biology's "WEIRD" problem. There are always going to be obvious reasons why we'd want to use mice instead of elephants as model organisms, but we might be entering into an era when the fixation on a few species might abate at least somewhat. With that, I point you to a piece in The Scientist (in its final issue I believe), Beyond the Model - How next-generation sequencing technologies will drive a new era of research on non-model organisms:
Central goals of biology have always been to understand the basis for diversity within and among species, and to understand how the environment can influence the expression of different traits. These emerging genetic approaches enable studies in a greatly expanded number of organisms and potentially allow genetic approaches to be applied in natural habitats. The use of model organisms is not dead, however. The utilization of previously generated resources and continued development of model systems will support and facilitate research in non-models. But with the ability to address molecular mechanisms in the natural world, we can truly begin to understand how all of these factors interact to generate the biological diversity that motivated the early scientists and continues to inspire us today.
There is a reason for the hype that the 21st century will be to biology what the 20th was to physics.
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