“The Selfish Gene is written brilliantly. It just happens to be basically incorrect.”
“It’s not the DNA that determines what is passed on to the next generation. It is the living cell.”
“Your genes are like a CD. Studying the CD itself will tell you nothing about the music.”
— Dr. Denis Noble
For 70 years we have been told a single story about biology: that our genes are a blueprint, a program running our lives from the inside, and that if we could just read the code we would cure disease. Denis Noble, the Oxford physiologist who built the first working mathematical model of the heart, has spent decades arguing that this story is wrong. Not that genes do not matter, but that they are not the thing in charge.
Dr. Noble’s point is that genes are a database the living cell draws on, not the program running the show. The proteins our DNA codes for do not decide what we do with them, any more than the pipes of an organ decide what the organist plays. The causation happens at the level of the network, the whole living system, not the gene.
He argues this is why the Human Genome Project never delivered the cures we were promised in 1999, and why the polygenic scores meant to predict who gets cancer or heart disease do not actually work when put to the test. He explains how a living cell corrects its own DNA errors with an accuracy no chemical process can match, how traits can be inherited without any change to the DNA at all, and why the mother’s egg cell may carry as much information about who we are as our entire genome.
Dr. Noble is one of the founding figures of systems biology, the man Nature asked to review the book declaring the genome is not the blueprint for life. He has debated Richard Dawkins directly, and as he puts it, if he is right, the selfish gene has had evolution backwards for over fifty years.
What we discuss in this episode:
Why the Human Genome Project never delivered the cures we were promised in 1999.
Why polygenic scores fail to predict who gets cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Noble’s long-running clash with Richard Dawkins and the selfish gene.
Why he says evolution itself works nothing like we were taught.
Why purpose and intelligence run all the way down, from the immune system to a predator chasing its prey.
Watch on YouTube, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Timestamps and related episodes below.
I am Aastha from Live Longer World, and this episode was co-hosted with Cameron Borg of Ricci Flow Nutrition.
All other platforms: here
Timestamps:
00:00 The Selfish Gene Is Just Not Correct
00:21 What Are Functional Networks, Really?
02:09 Genes Build the Muscles, But Don't Move Them
09:42 Your Genes Are a CD, Not the CD Player
12:11 Can Your DNA Predict Your Disease?
14:23 If Not Genes, How Do We Find Cures?
18:18 Then Does Gene Therapy Even Work?
21:32 Why Scientists Can't Let the Paradigm Go
24:08 What Darwin and Lamarck Actually Said
31:42 Do Animals Choose? Darwin Thought So
38:07 The Finite Monkeys Problem With Evolution
45:15 Inheritance Without Changing Your DNA
49:31 How Do You Actually Reproduce Denis Noble?
50:49 Is the Selfish Gene Right From Evolution's View?
54:45 Answering Jerry Coyne: Isn't DNA the Recipe?
59:51 Who Wrote the Genetic Code?
1:08:22 The Problem of Form: You Can't Get It From Genes
1:12:01 The Mitochondria Accident That Made Complex Life
1:13:05 Why Big Life Needs a Heart
1:17:54 Why Mars Is a Pipe Dream
1:18:45 Mike Levin and the Alignment of the Body
1:21:29 What Does Denis Disagree With Mike Levin On?
1:24:59 The Biggest Taboo: Purpose in Biology
1:27:35 Is Consciousness Just Expensive Energy?
1:28:55 What Your Immune System Knows
1:42:01 How Birds at Altitude Prove the Point
1:44:29 Final Thoughts: Life Is More Interesting Than You Think
Previous Episode with Denis Noble & Michael Levin:
