This post is adapted from my 2016 essay that inspired the 2025 PNAS Nexus article with Guru Madhavan and Jay Labov on the origins of failure in bodies and machines.
most relevant disanalogies arise from complexity and evolutionary considerations, but i don't think that naturalists/non-magicalists use the machine metaphor to literally assert that the properties/principles you sort to machines in your paper also apply to bodies. the more charitable interpretation of this metaphor is the more robust claim that bodies (and whatever that exists at all) are MECHANISMS.
Thanks for the article! I enjoyed reading it. Teaching students a simplified version of a complex system is common practice in many disciplines, not just the medical ones. Even in mechanical engineering and physics, where learning to build literal machines is literally the job, students are first taught overly-simplified systems, because it's the most efficient way to introduce difficult concepts. I'm guessing the same is true in the medical world, and students who become more specialized in certain areas are then exposed to a more realistic description of these systems.
I'm not sure the table comparing bodies to machines is entirely accurate, even the 2025 article for PNAS Nexus. Some of the listed differences seem to be more about semantics than actual differences.
Metaphors help people understand complicated, complex, or abstract things. Like stated in the article, without a better metaphor, I'm not convinced that removing the current one would actually help more than it would hurt.
most relevant disanalogies arise from complexity and evolutionary considerations, but i don't think that naturalists/non-magicalists use the machine metaphor to literally assert that the properties/principles you sort to machines in your paper also apply to bodies. the more charitable interpretation of this metaphor is the more robust claim that bodies (and whatever that exists at all) are MECHANISMS.
Thanks for the article! I enjoyed reading it. Teaching students a simplified version of a complex system is common practice in many disciplines, not just the medical ones. Even in mechanical engineering and physics, where learning to build literal machines is literally the job, students are first taught overly-simplified systems, because it's the most efficient way to introduce difficult concepts. I'm guessing the same is true in the medical world, and students who become more specialized in certain areas are then exposed to a more realistic description of these systems.
I'm not sure the table comparing bodies to machines is entirely accurate, even the 2025 article for PNAS Nexus. Some of the listed differences seem to be more about semantics than actual differences.
Metaphors help people understand complicated, complex, or abstract things. Like stated in the article, without a better metaphor, I'm not convinced that removing the current one would actually help more than it would hurt.