Monday, November 19, 2007

War on Cancer - Stalemate might be better

Immune system can drive cancers into dormant state
A multinational team of researchers has shown for the first time that the immune system can stop the growth of a cancerous tumor without actually killing it.

I read an article some years ago talking about our fondness for the use of war metaphors, particularly in science - can't find the original, but this sums it up: The war against war metaphors
 
...militaristic language pops up in almost every scientific domain: conservation biology ("invasive species," "biosecurity"); global warming ("global war on global warming"); and biomedicine ("killer cells," "hitting multiple targets").
...Scientists who frame problems in a militaristic manner also likely have a drastically limited perception of the problem and how to tackle it...

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/war12june03.html also talks of how unhelpful the phrases "War on Cancer" and "War on Terror" are.  They imply there is one big enemy and that a decisive victory is the only way forward.  Stalemate would been seen as losing and therefore not an option.

Also reminded of a book on complexity in the workplace that stressed the importance of a project team developing their own language to create a coherance in the way the group work together.  Great book: The Intelligence Advantage - Organizing for Complexity by Michael D. McMasters.

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