Prof Denis Noble’s latest book on evolutionary biology, Dance to the Tune of Life, was published in the Autumn of 2016, and is a follow up to the hugely successful 2006 book The Music of Life. His new work produces yet more evidence for a 21st century, multi-level, integrative approach to evolutionary biology, attacking the 20th century reductionism of neo-Darwinism with renewed vigour.
Voices from Oxford has produced three lectures given by Prof Noble, each of which varies in style according to the respective audience. We encourage you to watch one or all of them in order to better understand this hotly debated topic.
In summary, the Physiological Society lecture gives the most detail and depth, the Biochemistry Society lecture offers the most debate and argument, whilst the Swansea University Medical School lecture is aimed at those engaged in medical research.
Physiological Society, London
21st November, 2016
Recorded just days after the publication of Dance to the Tune of Life, Noble’s lecture to the Physiological Society gives a full and detailed account of the evidence to support his thesis. It’s the most in depth and lengthy lecture to date, and was well received by the audience, whose backgrounds in physiological science made them open and receptive to the ideas being presented. A must watch for those open to Noble’s ideas, and wishing to hear them fully explained with highly detailed evidence.
http://voicesfromoxford.org/video/dance-to-the-tune-of-life-lecture/699
University of Oxford Biochemistry Society
8th February, 2017
With an audience highly specialised in biochemistry and molecular biology, Noble chose to give a shorter presentation of his main points in order to leave time for the inevitable questions, challenges and debate. One questioner attacked the entire validity of his work, but Noble responded by explaining how Johannsen’s original 1909 definition of a gene shouldn’t be confused with more recent and ongoing interpretations, and that this misunderstanding lay at the heart of the question. Noble also reiterated his point that whilst some neo-Darwinian mechanisms are indeed necessary to explain evolutionary biology, they’re certainly nowhere near sufficient to explain the whole story. A must watch for those who agree with James Watson’s quip, that, “It’s all molecules, the rest is sociology.”
http://voicesfromoxford.org/video/biochemistry-society-lecture/710
Swansea University Medical School
9th March, 2017
The medical implications of Dance to the Tune of Life are many fold. Since the human genome was sequenced in 2000, the much hyped medical advances based on this knowledge have spectacularly failed to materialise. And if our basic understanding of the processes at work in human bodies has been warped and misunderstood by the dogma of neo-Darwinism, how then are we to effectively treat disease and practice medicine? This presentation was tailored with this in mind, and is a must watch for those engaged in medical research.
http://voicesfromoxford.org/video/physiology-guides-evolution/723