Revised: Summary and Personal Reaction to "Linked" (Barabasi p 1-8)

Summary

In the book, Barabasi mentions the importance and powerfulness of networks. He compares MafiaBoy, a fifteen-year-old boy who hacked the Internet, with Paul, a clergyman who spread Christianity to the Western world. Even though, the former being a destroyer and the latter a builder, there is one significant common feature in their actions: the effective use of networks. Their success in giving a large influence to the world was due to the existence of strong interconnectedness among people. Barabasi writes that all networks surprisingly have an underlying order and follow simple laws. Scientists are mapping networks in a wide range of scientific disciplines, proving that social networks, companies, and cells are more similar than they are different, and providing new insights into the interconnected world around us. Barabasi criticizes reductionism that divides the whole into combination of simple parts. Because everything is linked to everything else, nothing happens in isolation. In order to understand a phenomenon as a whole, we must pay attention to all the connection it has. Barabasi’s sticky message in this chapter is “think networks.”

Reaction

Barabasi writes, “The challenges doctors face when they attempt to cure a disease by focusing on a single molecule or gene, disregarding the complex interconnectedness of living matter."

According to Western medicine, human body is defined as a system consisted of different organs, which are composed of different tissues and cells. Western cure focuses on organ, tissue, cell, even a bio-molecule, which is the concept of dividing a whole into small pieces. The treatment policy is based on targeting directly at the point of disease by giving drugs or performing operation. Usually such treatments are harmful to other parts of body because of the ignorance of the fact that human body is a system just like a network.

In the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), human body is considered to be a part of nature based on a number of philosophical frameworks including the theory of yin-yang and the five elements refering to wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Therefore, diagnosis and treatment are conducted with reference to the above concepts, and interrelationship beteen human body and environment are emphasyzed. Chinese medicine focuses on the balance and connection among organs and tissues. A dose of Chinese medicine is usually composed of more than 20 herbs, which contains hundreds even thousands of chemical components. Even though most of the components are unknown, the Chinese medicine is proved to be effective by the practice of more than 2000 years and by the modern technology of sciences.

In conclusion, the two medical systems, Western medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine, have a different view on human body. The former focuses on parts of body, whereas the latter focuses on the network linking human body and natural environments.