Why Dawkins is wrong | Denis Noble interview - We need a holistic approach - reductionism has failed

[Tholkappiyan Vembian]

All of us interested in free thinking and empirical science (let us leave the materialistic metaphysical interpretation of the empirical science models as a separate thread of discussion / exploration) need to be up to date with the current hard scientific facts and developments, if we don't want to be hoodwinked by scientific dogmatism like by religious dogmatism.

Worth listening to this interview. The Professor explains how dualism is creeping back under disguise. He struggles to explain the agency but at least he accepts reductionism has failed while appreciating its importance.

Reductionism is a tool used by the organism to understand itself from a specific perspective. It is a description (cell biology / genomics / microbiology). It cannot replace what is being described (organism).

Why Dawkins is wrong | Denis Noble interview

Why Dawkins is wrong | Denis Noble interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCLRKP9NW8I

In this interview, esteemed biologist Denis Noble explains why our approach to biology is the wrong way around. 

We thought that the sequencing of genetic information would unlock vast developments in medical cures for a whole host of illnesses. However, sequencing the genome alone hasn't revolutionised medicine. Denis Noble argues that we have our treatments the wrong way around. Instead, we need to recognise that genes are not on/off switches, and move beyond dualism in Biology. 

Watch world-famous scientist Richard Dawkins go head-to-head with celebrated biologist Denis Noble as they debate the role of genes over the eons at https://iai.tv/video/the-gene-machine... 

00:00 Introduction 

00:26 Why does the idea of genetic determinism have such a lasting appeal? 

06:13 What do you see as the fault of this gene-centric Neo-Darwinian picture? 

11:22 How did Darwin's view get distorted by Neo-Darwinism? 

14:18 What is the alternative to genetic determinism? 

17:55 Can determinism come from the environment? 

22:37 What do you make of CRISPR and human enhancement? 

24:53 What is the biggest question in molecular biology at the moment? 

Oxford Professor and one of the pioneers of Systems Biology, Noble developed the first viable mathematical model of the working heart in 1960.