While Monday's longread looked at how the medical system in the U.S. may focus too much on individual customization, today's article highlights a completely different approach. It documents the efforts of a particular researcher to scientifically categorize and measure everything that happens in the body. It's an enticing proposition, and I think there is likely a lot to be learned from these sorts of efforts. That said, I feel that ultimately this sort of project is overly ambitious and carries a certain level of discomforting hubris. There are so many interdependent systems within the body that I am skeptical of any approach that believes it can reduce them all to quantitative measuring and analysis.
"The Measured Man" by Mark Bowden
Published in the Atlantic, July/August 2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/the-measured-man/309018/?single_page=true
Eric
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