A short comment, published in the 11 December 2014 issue of Nature and entitled “Ditch the term pathogen,” is the most interesting, thought-provoking piece that I have ever read in that distinguished science magazine, and, over the years, I have read quite a few. The argument of the authors, Arturo Casadevall and Liise-anne Pirofski, is that the idea that diseases are caused by external agents—pathogens, bad microbes—is incorrect and part of an oversimplistic paradigm. This paradigm, which can be associated […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: bacteria, Charlie Hebdo, FBI, Freud, history of science, medicine, Nietzsche, poetry, politics, science