Description
Take a few deep breaths: Holism in, Reductionism out.
We need to stop talking about "self/non-self recognition" for three reasons.
First, it sets up a strict self/non-self dichotomy, when the presence of autoimmunity, cancer, and disease remind us that our borders are ever-permeable. Does the immunology community not heed the 1871 warning by A. Rimbaud that "I is another"? Second, "recognition" implies that the immune cell surveyor will re-cognize (to cognize again) the antigen based upon previous encounters, which we know to be false, as antibodies are able to active immune cascades upon their very first introduction to a suitable partner. Lastly, the dyadic interaction is falsely given a…
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