What makes some fields more prone to overpromising than others? There will be many factors influencing how scientists make promises, one of which is the discourse of the discipline. In ‘“Love is a microbe too”: Microbiome dialectics’, philosopher Hub Zwart tackles the field of microbiomics, a field which according to Zwart is at risk of overpromising: ‘the question emerges how to distinguish realistic scenarios from overpromising, notably in view of the reputation of -omics fields for their tendency towards overpromising or “promisomics”’ (p. 4). Zwart provides a basis for researchers who would like to better understand these problems and their solution through the lens of dialectics.

Zwart makes a first attempt to provide a Hegelian dialectical framework for distinguishing realistic scenarios from hype. This framework consists of understanding microbiomics as a dialectical field which should be studied dialectically. Zwart gives some examples of how the microbiome is supposedly dialectic, i.e. constantly in flux, but only superficially glosses over them. He then argues that research into the microbiome itself has progressed dialectically. Zwart traces the history of microbiome research to the 1670s, when Anthony van Leeuwenhoek first spotted microbes (“animalculae”) with his self-made microscope, and distinguishes between stages: the first stage when the distinction between self and other (microbes) began, the second stage where microbes come to be seen as a threat to the self, and the third stage where the otherness of the microbes is incorporated through vaccines.

Although it is not immediately clear how his dialectical views on both the microbiome and microbiomics contribute to preventing hype and overpromising, this becomes somewhat clearer in the succeeding section, where Zwart argues that we are now entering a new dialectical phase where the distinction between laboratory world and life-world is disappearing due to the proliferation of electronic gadgets which allow us to monitor our microbiome. It is implied, but never stated in explicit detail, that the disappearance of this divide between laboratory world and life-world would diminish hype and overpromising, probably because this would solve the knowledge deficit that Zwart identifies.