Our theories about human disease are the product of current fashion 【M1】______
than we would like to admit. But just as the moment influences the hemline
and the automobile fender, so too a type of intellectual currency 【M2】______
affect our understanding of how illness happens. Much of
the 20th century is spent in pursuit of external causes of 【M3】______
disease - cigarettes, fatty foods, tick bites. Rather like the hero in an old western,
medicine’s work was to track down the bad guys, round them up 【M4】______
and squish them before a real commotion. Antibiotics, vaccines,
heart pills - these were our weapons in the epic battle between us and them, good versus evil.
More recently, although, we have cast our gaze inward, mesmerized by 【M5】______
our own adorable DNA. Just last decade, after 40 years of intense flirtation,
this relationship was consummated as we cloned the entire human genome.
Promise of improved health and longevity soon followed, 【M6】______
as we had apparently found our way to the bedrock truths that underlie all illness.
But with this orgy of molecular self-admiration
has come a fundamental shift of thinking 【M7】______
about human disease. We have moved from our long-hold premise 【M8】______
which the outside world (too much ice cream and flesh-eating bacteria) threatens【M9】______
us to a belief that the trouble rises from something much closer 【M10】______
to home - our own double-crossing genes.
【M1】