The uproar that ensued was clamorous and immediate; Smithers complained that he had been “lacerated by Occam’s razor.” By arguing that cellular relationships were responsible for cancer’s behavior, he had committed the cardinal sin of multiplying the factors that oncologists had to consider. “To deny the importance of cells in tumor growth would be like denying the importance of people in some problem in sociology,” he later clarified. Cancer cells were a necessary condition for disease but not a sufficient one. His real aim was to get beyond oncology’s obsession with its internal-combustion engine—the cellular automaton and its genes—and only after his death has the field started to come to grips with his message. - www.newyorker.com