Further notes about the morphostasis concept – split files

(01) A letter sent, 1st January 1997

[Start of letter]
"You may find this of interest. You certainly ought to be aware that biology could be heading for a "Richter scale 8" earthquake iconclasm.

This concept is either rubbish – "dung heap tripe" – or it is an earthquake iconoclasm that is set to radically alter the whole of biological/medical thinking. Once refined, it could do for biology what general relativity did for physics. It is a realisation that immediately unleashes the bounds of a constrictive conventional perspective into a vastly better paradigm of metazoan life. You cannot possibly understand the body's response to any disease (auto–immune, infective, cancer) until you have understood these principles. You certainly cannot understand immunology until you have.

I think that I have been remarkably patient waiting for peer review to realise the importance of this concept. After all, I don't want to repeat an event like the premature claims made about "cold fusion". So, I have stayed away from the media. BUT....... it seems as though peer review is being "an ass" (see David Horrobin's article in the Lancet, 9/11/96 p 1293 et seq – I quote "History suggests a near universal rule – that innovation comes from an unexpected direction, and it is usually opposed by leading authorities in the field" – he sent me the paper partly in reply to receiving a copy of article (c) below). I am ignored by just about everyone in the field. I have a few letters that may help to highlight the responses that I have received. The general trend is, now, the cold shoulder. To me it seems like a conspiracy of silence.

What is different about this concept? Well, it is not crippled by a radically incorrect assumption. Read any textbook of immunology and you will soon discover that immunologists are convinced that the immune system is dominantly interested in combating infection in the body. In fact, the body troubles itself little, in its primary response, about the presence or absence of infection per se. What it troubles itself about is "sick cells". The vast majority of these are identified "in house", within and by the affected cell itself. Apoptosis is its elected response and this deals effectively with the vast majority of sick cells. This single (missing) factor is the critical, core point that current immunology fails to raise to a position of dominance. The aggressive immune system is only brought into action when cells fall sick and fail to "shut themselves down in a controlled fashion" (ie, elective apoptosis). These cells are dangerous and the immune system recognises them as such. For future reference, the immune system makes sure it remembers something characteristic about these cells – and it is engineered to favour latching onto the most unusual looking peptide junk that is being cleared away from inside the sick cell. The fact that the immune system is good at identifying and preventing infection is a consequence of sick cells dying in an uncontrolled way. Because infection is a frequent cause of this, it gives the illusion that aggressive immune activity is particularly interested in infection per se. It is not! It is interested only in cells that die in an uncontrolled fashion. All the rest is "consequence": we have misinterpreted it because we are looking at it from the wrong direction.

Where did this radically incorrect assumption (the wrong direction) come from? – the way circulating antibodies bind to bacteria and viruses and immobilise them! Antibodies are latecomers in the evolution of immune systems. So, it is a gross error to have crystallised all subsequent opinion around this early observation. It was a presumption to have assumed that "attacking infective agents" was the immune system's primary "raison d'être". But the idea sticks – like a limpet!

I have attached abstracts of three articles.

Please remember that the contents of the last two (b and c) are not yet in the public domain and, should you wish to see them, they should not be reproduced.

There are three more articles in my possession

I think it is time that the establishment is stirred up. They may not like my style. They may find it cavalier or far too speculative in its approach. They might not like the general concept of "theoretical immunology". But.... they cannot forever continue to deny that this hypothetical approach is finding answers that conventional research methods will take an age to uncover.

There is a lot of potential glory in these ideas. It would be fun to have them attributed to me but that is a self centred rather than a social response. However, it is a social crime that the fundamental understanding of cancer, infection and auto–immune diseases is being held in limbo now the fast track to a radically improved understanding has been laid out – yet still no–one appears to be taking it.

I have attached a series of quotes that set the scene. Do not underestimate that this is a potentially shattering realisation.

This is big, big, big!

I suspect, like the rest of the establishment, you will end up filing this in the cranks bin."
[End of letter]

So where are we in early 2023?

Thomas Kuhn talked of the "invisibility of paradigm shifts". Those living through such a shift remain unaware of its magnitude until the textbooks are re-examined for change. So far, although I constantly look out for the evidence of this, I have been disappointed to see that the "bug hunting, chasing and killing" purpose of the immune system stays firmly reified; it is heresy to challenge it. OK, there is some deviance when it comes to tumours but that is "because they satisfy the hunt for and aggression to non-self epitopes (antigens)". The textbooks have stayed almost universally faithful to the old view.

Now, however, I believe that I have seen the first chink in this committed belief. In In Chapter 1 of Paul's (2022) Fundamental Immunology, the authors write, "While we have historically viewed the immune system as a protective force charged with attacking and repelling pathogens and tumors, it is increasingly clear that it plays a more complex role in keeping the body healthy. In some cases, the latter mandate even requires the system to "ignore" some microbes /..../ especially if the costs of continued inflammatory responses are high. It participates in healing wounds, facilitating organ development, reinforcing neurological learning, etc." And, the authors go on to talk about a "layering" of the immune response; it does not quite say it this way but it implies that the more (evolutionarily) primitive mechanisms deal with disruptions first and the extra layers are are only added in when the more primitive barriers fail; and then, "homeostasis" creeps in.

Watch this trend – will it now snowball?