"The answer to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene"

This page is where readers who wish to go deeper can find the ideas of The Music of Life sourced and developed further in video and published lectures. The full set of articles form an inter-related set. There is a quick download list at the bottom left of this page for those who wish to have the complete set.

 

 

"no privileged level of causality"

 

"neo-Darwinian synthesis now known to be incompatible with the most recent discoveries"

 

 

"In addition to natural selection,

Darwin admits use and disuse as an important evolutionary mechanism"

 

"We are all feeling our way in the face of the extreme complexity of nature"

 

 

Quick download list:

 

Paton Lecture

Genes and Causation

Biophysics and Systems Biology

"Letter from Lamarck"

Selfish genes

Molecular Systems Biology

Systems Biology: an approach

A Theory of Biological relativity

 

 

Music of Life Sourcebook

(The complete set of articles listed above)

 

 

More downloads

 

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Video Lectures in English

Lecture in Dresden (ECCS 07) on videolectures.net     Over 4500 views

This lecture was given at a Conference on Complex systems in Dresden. It begins by noting that we do not yet really know what Systems Biology is. I agree with the following remark:

"You are probably running out of patience for some definition of systems biology. In any case, I do not think the explicit definition of systems biology should come from me but should await the words of the first great modern systems biologist. She or he is probably among us now." (Marc Kirschner, Harvard University, 2005, Cell, 121, 503-504).

We are all feeling our way in the face of the extreme complexity of nature and the daunting task of unraveling her secrets.

Interview in Dresden (ECCS 07) on videolectures.net

This interview followed the Dresden lecture and explains what the book and the lecture are about.

Lectures in Oxford  on www.pulse-project.org

These lectures on systems biology for a public audience were accompanied with music, one of them with the renowned classical guitarist, Christoph Denoth ( http://www.christophdenoth.com   )

Lecture in Freiburg

Plenary lecture, "Principles of systems biology and their application to cells", given at the conference "Systems Biology of Mammalian Cells" in Freiburg in June 2010:  Where are the cathedrals of the 21st century? They are here in this room!

 

Published Lectures & articles (download pdfs)

Paton Lecture (ten principles of Systems Biology)

Principle of Biological Relativity

"There is no privileged level of causality in biological systems" (The Music of Life, page xii)  This lecture develops this principle in the context of general principles of systems biology.

Genes and Causation (relations between genes and phenotype)

Third principle: DNA is not the sole transmitter of inheritance.

"There are two components to molecular inheritance: the genome DNA, which can be viewed as digital information, and the cellular machinery, which can, perhaps by contrast, be viewed as analogue information."

Biophysics and Systems Biology (why Systems Biology is revolutionary)

Systems biology and evolution

"Central building blocks of the neo-Darwinian synthesis are now known to be incompatible with the most recent discoveries in molecular biology."

"Letter from Lamarck"

"Lamarckism"??

"There is a widespread perception that Darwin and Lamarck fought over this issue of the mechanisms of inheritance" (The Music of Life, page 99). This brief "Letter from Lamarck" explains why this perception is profoundly incorrect.

Selfish genes: are they of any use in physiology?

"The selfish gene idea is not useful in the physiological sciences, since selfishness cannot be defined as an intrinsic property of nucleotide sequences independently of gene frequency, i.e. the ‘success’ in the gene pool that is supposed to be attributable to the ‘selfish’ property. It is not a physiologically testable hypothesis.

Differential and Integral views of genetics

"This article uses an integrative systems biological view of the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes to clarify some conceptual problems in biological debates about causality. The differential (gene-centric) view is incomplete in a sense analogous to using differentiation without integration in mathematics."

Published in the Royal Society journal, Interface Focus, 2011, 1, 7-15

A Theory of Biological relativity

This article has just appeared on-line in the Royal Society's journal Interface Focus. Biological relativity can be seen as an extension of the relativity principle by avoiding the assumption that there is a privileged scale at which biological functions are determined. It forms part of an issue of the journal devoted to downward causation.

 

Lectures in French 

Colloquium Jacques Morgenstern, INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, April 2007

Launch of La Musique de la Vie, Paris, January 2007

Congrès GIFRIC, Québec, May 2008

Concert Lectures

Presented with guitarist Christoph Denoth

Video recording of Concert-Lecture "The Music of Life" at Sheffield University

 


The MUSIC of Life: Biology Beyond the Genome ©Denis Noble