The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Universal principles satisfy us—one equation good—because they satisfy our belief in an ordered universe. But why must “order” be so soldierly, so singular, so unifest (as opposed to manifest)? Perhaps one manifesto for the future of cell biology is to integrate “atomism” and “holism.” Multicellularity evolved, again and again, because cells, while retaining their boundaries, found multiple benefits in citizenship. Perhaps we, too, should begin to move from the one to the many. That, more than any other, is the advantage of understanding cellular systems, and, beyond that, cellular ecosystems. We need to know everyone who lives in this building. In January 1902, just as the danse-macabre of German sectarian division, based on the pseudoscience of racial and biological anthropology, was beginning to whir around him, Rudolf Virchow, running from appointment to appointment, missed his footing while stepping off an electric streetcar on Leipziger Street in Berlin. He fell off, injuring his thigh.

Holistic fallacy soft-headed and irresponsibly amalgamated Fallacy Epistemic concern