Valleys of Silence

In The Song of the Cell, Siddhartha Mukherjee writes:

“In the history of biology, there are valleys of silence that follow the peaks of monumental discoveries.”

Like when Benjamin Marten reasoned that TB was caused by microscopic organisms in 1720. It would take another century before Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur linked diseases to microbial cells. Or when Mendel discovered genes in 1865. It was followed by 40+ years of no mention of genes.

 

But the reality is different:

“If you zoom into these valleys of history, they are far from silent or inactive. They represent extraordinarily fecund periods when scientists try to wrap their minds around the magnitude, generality, and explanatory power of a discovery.”

More questions follow in this period. Does the new idea explain any other “previously inexplicable observations”? Are there any further levels of organization beyond what was proposed?

 

Quite often, writes Mukherjee, one needs new instruments and model systems to answer all of the above questions. Genes had to wait for X-ray crystallography to start the understanding of their structure. (This isn’t just in biology. The atomic theory of Dalton had to wait for the cathode ray tube in 1890, and the mathematical equations of quantum theory to explain the structure of the atom). Similarly:

“Cell biology had to wait for centrifugation, biochemistry, and electron microscopy.”

 

And the more revolutionary the claim, the longer it takes to internalize it. Not just because of biases; there’s another reason.

“Atomistic claims are the most audacious of all: the scientist is proposing a fundamental reorganization of a world into unitary entities. Atoms. Genes. Cells.”

Learning to view the world through a new paradigm isn’t easy.

 

A very interesting perspective on those “valleys of silence”.