|
Does anyone on the list know the work of Dr. Gilbert Ling? I got a
newsletter from I-SIS.org.uk, which is Dr. Mae-Wan Ho's organization, about some
new book she is recommending by Dr. Gilbert Ling. In the description of
Ling, I saw a lot of similarity in how my father's work and career had gone,
although Ling has had a lot more direct trouble. I did some research on Ling and
he has a website where he talks about how the peer-review system of publication
is actively detrimental to science and innovation (which was why my father was
creating BioTheory).
However, what lies at the center of all of his professional woes
seems to be the issue of his theory of cell membrane activity versus the "sodium
pump" theory that has been widely accepted by the scientific and medical
communities. More than this, if I'm interpreting him correctly, there is Ling's
assertion that life at the cellular level is the root of all life. He says we
need to understand what's really going on if we want to learn about life in
general. He's an experimental scientist, not a theorist, although his work is
decidedly verging into the theoretical realm of foundations and I'm troubled by
what I see as the conclusions he's driving towards. Partly I'm troubled because
I think he's correctly diagnosed that there is something very wrong with how
physics approaches biological systems, but I think he has latched onto very
limited replacements.
Is anyone familiar with Ling's body of work?
Judith
On the face of it, cell biology is booming. Advances in laser optics
and multi-photon techniques are producing ever brighter and sharper pictures of
cells, even live ones. Fluorescent labels make it possible to find out which
regions of the genome are transcribed when; and to track any and every protein
in action within the cell.
These images are living chronicle of the astonishing diversity of molecular species that the cell uses in `signal transduction' and downstream processes; the multitude of genes and non-gene regions of the genome transcribed, the coding messages translated into protein and transported to the organelles to transform material and energy, to remodel the cell's cytoskeleton, to power arrays of molecular motors, not to mention the battalions of molecular pumps in the cell membrane that must be energized to keep out unwanted ions and metabolites, the receptors and gates that must be flipped open to let the nutrients in through special `channels' and to discharge secretions and wastes to the outside. And all that molecular `hardware' the cell churns up and replaces with unseemly haste and extravagance as it goes about its business of living. It simply defies the imagination to figure out how the cell can keep changing shape and substance yet maintain its unmistakable identity, or else, even more mysteriously, manage to switch identity to become a different kind of cell. And above all, no matter what it does, a cell never loses its sense of being an organising, organized whole. There is a dearth of new ideas that can lift cell biology out of the pervasive molecular malaise that has infected all of the life sciences to varying degrees in this post-genomics era: a proliferation of molecular hardware and data, with no modicum of general understanding on the horizon. |