Peter Sterling’s Power Points and Accompanying Comments

I worked in a medical school for 40 years and every course began with the statement that homeostasis is the basis for all medicine.  It is still the basic concept. So, I want to brief indicate how incorrect this is.

I quote from Claude Bernard in 1854 (just before Origin of Species):

“The fixity of the (internal) milieu supposes that external variations are at each instant compensated …. All the vital mechanisms have one goal, to maintain the uniformity of the conditions in the internal environment…”(edited for brevity and emphasis)

Walter Cannon (chair physiology, Harvard, 1906-1942) elaborated this hypothesis and named it “homeostasis”. Cannon’s final summary (Science, 1941) included these points: (1) constancy is key; achieved by detecting errors and correcting (like a thermostat), (2) mechanisms are largely of the body; neural controls for emergencies (“fight or flight”), (3) safety factors are large; for example, plenty of extra blood, and (4) automatic mechanisms of the body free the brain for “higher” functions: “for work and play, for adventures, for research and exploration, for the production and enjoyment of literature, and for all manner of social interests.”

But all of these points are incorrect.

Start with the primary goal of the organism: it’s not constancy but efficiency.