To the editor

I read Michael Klymkowsky's recent review of my book, Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life (Nature Cell Biol. 3, E213; 2001), and find myself struggling to understand how his observations lead to his conclusions.

Klymkowsky admits that at least some of the challenges to current orthodoxy may be substantive. Yet, he dismisses such challenges as “anecdotal,” notwithstanding some 450 cited references. He then goes on to declare that the “cross-checked” findings of many studies (none cited) leave little room for doubt that current views must be rock solid. Given such certainty, he is forced to conclude that questions such as those raised in the book do harm to science.

I was taught that scientific theories could never be proved; that no matter how much evidence could be marshalled in support of a theory, a new, conflicting observation has the potential to turn that theory on its ear. Klymkowsky has apparently learned from a different teacher. With a sweep of the hand, he dismisses the wealth of contradictory evidence presented in the book as “anecdotal,” and prefers to bank on all of those ineffable “cross-checked” findings. Perhaps he could explain why findings that fit current views should be given more weight than those that do not fit.

The author also takes a jab at the presentation's “folksy” style. Deviating from the stuffy, jargon-filled style that typifies much scientific writing (and obscures flaws in reasoning) is regarded as unscientific.

Klymkowsky may be surprised to find that the material he dismisses as “muck-making” is in growing demand worldwide—on the plenary agenda at international scientific venues, and increasingly in the classroom at major universities. Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life is becoming a scientific best-seller, with translations pending in three languages. The community is evidently hungry for a critical, no-holds barred, evaluation of entrenched paradigms, and for exposure to potentially more productive paradigms—even if the presentation style may border on the “folksy.”