Cell Quotes - page 12
Classical science in its diverse disciplines, be it chemistry, biology, psychology or the social sciences, tried to isolate the elements of the observed universe - chemical compounds and enzymes, cells, elementary sensations, freely competing individuals, what not -- expecting that, by putting them together again, conceptually or experimentally, the whole or system - cell, mind, society - would result and be intelligible. Now we have learned that for an understanding not only the elements but their interrelations as well are required: say, the interplay of enzymes in a cell, of many mental processes conscious and unconscious, the structure and dynamics of social systems and the like.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
The cell phones in the pockets of the dead students were still ringing when we were told that it was wrong to ask why. As the police cleared the bodies from the Virginia Tech engineering building, the cell phones rang, in the eccentric varieties of ring tones, as parents kept trying to see if their children were OK. To imagine the feelings of the police as they carried the bodies and heard the ringing is heartrending; to imagine the feelings of the parents who were calling - dread, desperate hope for a sudden answer and the bliss of reassurance, dawning grief - is unbearable. But the parents, and the rest of us, were told that it was not the right moment to ask how the shooting had happened - specifically, why an obviously disturbed student, with a history of mental illness, was able to buy guns whose essential purpose is to kill people - and why it happens over and over again in America.
Adam Gopnik