In the same vein as "The king is dead! Long live the king!", there is a
case for saying the old order is close to collapse.
The term immunity derives from the Latin immunos meaning "freedom from
burden or taxes". As such it is a pretty broad term. However, its
conventional usage has become constricted so that most immunologists
see the "immune system" as a mechanism that is designed to identify and
remove foreign organisms. Polly Matzinger's "danger" hypothesis has
started the challenge but I think the argument can be extended much
more deeply.
Since there seems to be a resolute intention to keep silent on this
challenge, let me see if I can stir up a discussion on these pages. In
particular, if you think the challenge is interesting, then please
provoke interest amongst your colleagues.
Let me first sum up the current perspective and then the challenging
perspective. The conventional view is as follows:
"Hey guys (immune cells that is) the bugs are out there, let's go get
and kill 'em. While we're about it we'll remember what they look like
so that we can kill 'em quicker next time."
The challenging view is:
"Oops. Something's making a (tissue) mess. Better go tidy up the mess.
While we're about it we'll remember the most unusual characteristics
(antigenic signatures) of this mess so that we can be alerted quicker
and be more aggressive next time a similar mess turns up."
The article that brings all this to a head is the "From terra firma ..
etc" article which is detailed at my web site
(http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~greenprac/jamie/jamie%20main.htm) as are a
series of other articles and comments that put meat on this challenging
perspective. To loosen the old view's grip you will have to be prepared
to sever your belief that the reigning "immune system" takes any
POSITIVE interest in bugs other than a few (evolutionarily primitive)
amoebocyte decisions about what is likely to be food ( - PAMPs and all
that stuff).
Now come on guys! Heresy is a GOOD tool in science. Science is not a
religion where wild and heretic ideas have to be exorcised in case they
remove a foundation stone of our belief structure. Considering heretic
ideas will challenge a strong paradigm so that it justifies itself more
securely. And will rock a weak one into being toppled from its doomed
position of power. So open debate is the way forward - not an
embarrassed neglect of discussion.
Lastly, I am adding some quotes from Kuhn's "The structure of
scientific revolutions" that help to keep perspectives open.
"…… we must recognise how very limited in both scope and precision a
paradigm can be at the time of its first appearance."
"Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when
successful, finds none."
"Previous practice of normal science has given every reason to consider
them solved or all but solved, which helps to explain why the sense of
failure, when it came, could be so acute."
"Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated that more than
one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given
collection of data."
"….. the invention of alternatives is just what scientists seldom
undertake ….."
"…. these anomalies will no longer seem to be simply facts. From within
a new theory of scientific knowledge, they may instead seem very much
like tautologies, statements of situations that could not conceivably
have been otherwise."
"…….. no paradigm that provides a basis for scientific research ever
completely resolves all its problems."
"…… every problem that normal science sees as a puzzle can be seen,
from another viewpoint, as a counterinstance and thus as a source of
crisis."
(on a new paradigm)
"Rather it is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a
reconstruction that enhances some of the field's most elementary
theoretical generalisations as well as many of its paradigm methods and
applications."
"….. handling the same bundles of data as before, but placing them in a
new system of relations with one another by giving them a different
framework."
"Scientists then often speak of the "scales falling from their eyes" or
of the "lightning flash" that "inundates" a previously obscure puzzle,
enabling its components to be seen in a new way that for the first time
permits its solution."
"Darwin, in … his Origin of Species, wrote: "Although I am fully
convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume…, I by no
means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are
stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of
years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine.... [B]ut I look
with confidence to the future, - to young and rising naturalists, who
will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality.""
"And Max Planck, … in his Scientific Autobiography, sadly remarked
that "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its
opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its
opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is
familiar with it.""
"Probably the single most prevalent claim advanced by the proponents of
a new paradigm is that they can solve the problems that have led the
old one to a crisis. When it can legitimately been made, this claim is
often the most effective one possible."
"…. the new theory is said to be "neater," "more suitable or "simpler"
than the old."
"The early versions of most new paradigms are crude."
"…. the opponents of the new paradigm can legitimately claim that even
in the area of crisis it is little superior to its traditional rival."
"In addition, the defenders of traditional theory and procedure could
almost always point to problems that its new rival has not solved but
that for their view are no problems at all."
"…. if a paradigm is ever to triumph it must gain some first
supporters, men who will develop it to the point where hardheaded
arguments can be produced and multiplied."
".... if the paradigm is one destined to win its fight, the number and
strength of the persuasive arguments in its favour will increase."
And lastly - on a cautionary note:
"There are losses as well as gains in scientific revolutions, and
scientists tend to be peculiarly blind to the former."
Jamie
--
Waterside Health Centre, SO45 5WX, UK
Home pages
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~greenprac/jamie.html
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
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