Harold Hillman (1930-2016) was a British Scientist who claimed that almost everything that was observed of biological cells through an electron microscope was in fact a fiction produced by the preparation of the samples and the action of the electron beam itself.
The images bear little resemblance to actual reality but the resulting models are still reproduced in textbooks today as of they were established fact.
Cell Biology is Currently in Dire Straights
http://pro-decizii-informate.ro/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Prof-Harold-Hillman-Cell-biology-at-the-beginning-of-the-21st-century-is-in-dire-straits-2011.pdf
“During a research career lasting more than 50 years, I have concluded that the following procedures are unsuitable for studying the biology of living cells in Intact animals and plants: subcellular fractionation; histology; histochemistry; electron microscopy; binding studies; use of ligands; immunocytochemistry; tissue slices; disruptive techniques; dehydration; deep freezing; freeze drying; boiling; use of extracellular markers; receptor studies; patch clamp measurements; inadequate calibrations”
“The nuclei, containing the nucleoli, and the mitochondria, are the only structures seen by light microscopy in the cytoplasm of living cells. All the other structures claimed to be present are only seen in electron micrographs of dead tissue, or in fixed stained histological sections. If they existed, the cytoplasm would be almost solid with endoplasmic reticulum, cytoskeleton, Golgi bodies, lysosomes, peroxisomes, contractile proteins and stress fibres.”
Hillman’s artefacts
The images below are from electron micrographs of biological tissue. The tissue has been frozen, sliced stained and finally subject to an electron beam.
The images are claimed to represent nuclear pores seen from different angles but there are good arguments from Hillman to suggest that this is not the case and that what we are seeing are merely artefacts of the microscopy process.
The circles on the right are all the same size and all the same shape which is not expected from the cross sections of a three dimensional structure. What we should see from a tubular structure is a variety of ellipses as it is cut at different angles and what we should see from a spherical organelle is a variety of sizes as it is sliced at the mid-section, top, or bottom.
In the image below from a video by Bob Greenyer we see the results of electron streams impacting a metal plate(?) or something similar.
The patterns look like the results of the formation of fractal ring vortices in the substrate. A clear ring is seen, as is a subdivision into numerous smaller elements which could also be interpreted as ring vortices.
The similarity to Hillman’s artefacts above is sufficient to take his claims seriously and we can see now that the patterns observed originate not from the tissue at all but from the electron beam itself even before it has impacted the material on the microscope slide.
Electron micrograph images are probably more closely related to the fundamental laws of plasma physics than they are to the structure of a living cell.
Harold Hillman in conversation with David Crowe author of The Infectious Myth
https://www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/PB4EF14CM5IT3
Related pages:
