“缺乏物理现实”
用英语怎么说？

In the mid-20th century, biologist Conrad Waddington proposed a conceptual scaffold to explain how pluripotent cells turn into specialized tissues. He imagined embryonic development as a ball rolling down a hilly landscape. As the ball rolls downhill, it encounters branching valleys, forcing it to choose a path. In this view, cells specialize into mature types by following these valleys, a process known as canalization. Although this idea was initially considered merely an intuitive visual metaphor lacking physical reality, it offered a valuable alternative to the purely gene-centered view of biology.

20世纪中叶，生物学家康拉德·沃丁顿提出了一个概念支架，用以解释多能细胞如何转变为特化组织。他将胚胎发育想象成一个小球沿着起伏的地形滚落。随着小球滚下山坡，它会遇到分叉的山谷，迫使其选择一条路径。根据这一观点，细胞通过沿着这些山谷前进以分化为成熟类型，这一过程被称为渠道化。尽管这一构想最初被认为仅仅是一个缺乏物理现实性的直观视觉比喻，但它为纯粹以基因为中心的生物学视角提供了一种宝贵的替代方案。