Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

 There has been a fair amount of talk recently about David Sabatini, an MIT scientist, whose mug is shown here. Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is now financing his research.  According to the local paper of MIT, the Boston Globe , Sabatini is "a biologist who once generated Nobel Prize buzz." Before going any further into the reason for the recent talk: what was the reason for the Nobel Prize buzz that preceded it "once"? It involved the study of rapamycin, a natural antibiotic found in the soil of Easter Island. In 2009, Sabatini received the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research for the study of rapamycin's anti-tumor effects.  The more recent development? Two years ago the University investigated charges of sexual harrassment by Sabatini and he was placed on leave. The investigators concluded that Sabatini had violated its policies and it recommended his tenure be revoked. He said in essence "you can't fire me, I quit."  Now (so says the Boston G...

Continuing the thought from yesterday ... my recent reading includes MALIGNANT GROWTH, a work by Alan Marcus, which is specifically devoted to the dark side of the "microbe hunting" paradigm in medical research. What happens if one diligently pursues the microbe that isn't there?  In 1887, a Dr Robert Morris wrote in POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, "It seems more than probable that all malignant growths belong to the infectious microbic diseases, and that by to-morrow we shall have the tiny causators."  That phrase, "malignant growth" as a synonym for cancer tumors, the defining characteristic of the disease, gave Marcus his title. The line also seems, more than any other datum, to have inspired his thesis: that from Morris' time until the First World War, scientists all over the world sought to understand and cure cancer by chasing a phantom, the non-existent cancer microbe. Further, Marcus contends that many of the institutional structures that we think...