Computational systems biologists create and manipulate computational models of biological systems, but they do not always have straightforward epistemic access to the content and behavioural profile of such models because of their length, coding idiosyncrasies, and formal complexity. This creates difficulties both for modellers in their research groups and for their bioscience collaborators who rely on these models. In this paper we introduce a new kind of visualization (observed in a qualitative study of a systems biology laboratory) that was developed to address just this sort of epistemic opacity. The visualization is unusual in that it depicts the dynamics and structure of a computer model instead of that model’s target system, and because it is generated algorithmically. Using considerations from epistemology and aesthetics, we explore how this new kind of visualization increases scientific understanding of the content and function of computer models in systems biology to reduce epistemic opacity.

中文翻译：

---

窥视黑匣子：一种新的科学可视化

计算系统生物学家创建和操作生物系统的计算模型，但由于它们的长度、编码特性和形式复杂性，他们并不总是能够直接了解这些模型的内容和行为概况。这给研究小组中的建模者和依赖这些模型的生物科学合作者带来了困难。在本文中，我们介绍了一种新的可视化（在系统生物学实验室的定性研究中观察到），它被开发用于解决这种认知不透明性。可视化的不同寻常之处在于它描绘了计算机模型的动态和结构，而不是该模型的目标系统，并且因为它是通过算法生成的。从认识论和美学的角度考虑，