Product Description

What is Life? Decades of research have resulted in the full mapping of the human genome - three billion pairs of code whose functions are only now being understood. The gene's eye view of life, advocated by evolutionary biology, sees living bodies as mere vehicles for the replication of the genetic codes. But for a physiologist, working with the living organism, the view is a very different one. Denis Noble is a world renowned physiologist, and sets out an alternative view to the question - one that becomes deeply significant in terms of the living, breathing organism. The genome is not life itself. Noble argues that far from genes building organisms, they should be seen as prisoners of the organism. The view of life presented in this little, modern, post-genome project reflection on the nature of life, is that of the systems biologist: to understand what life is, we must view it at a variety of different levels, all interacting with each other in a complex web. It is that emergent web, full of feedback between levels, from the gene to the wider environment, that is life. It is a kind of music. Including stories from Noble's own research experience, his work on the heartbeat, musical metaphors, and elements of linguistics and Chinese culture, this very personal and at times deeply lyrical book sets out the systems biology view of life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54003 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Customer Reviews

Small in size; big on ideas
Denis Noble describes his short book, "The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes", as a polemic. It is, in fact, a clarion call for a rethink to the reductionist dogmas that currently plague--and hinder--so much scientific thinking, particularly in the field of biology and, most especially, genetics. Professor Noble is not, of course, alone in making this call (see, for instance, Stuart Kaufmann's "Reinventing the Sacred" or "Evolution in Four Dimensions" by Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb) but he presents a particularly clear-sighted argument which few others have so far matched. His is a far-reaching and eminently readable disquisition, attacking first the popular metaphor articulated primarily by Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" (and promulgated endlessly--usually incorrectly--by science popularists ever since) that genes are the engines of evolution and each genome a comprehensive "program of life". Throughout his book, Noble turns that view around with a different and far more accurate metaphor, presenting the genome as a database from which the organism can select in order to call upon an elegant modularity of gene expression in a bewildering display of inventiveness of response to environmental and physiological conditions.

Along the way, the author uses a series of music-related analogies to extend his metaphor and piece together the various fragments of his argument into a coherent look at the biology of the organism as a fully functioning system, operating on and at many levels. He shows that far from the established view where the arrows of explanation all point downwards to the lower, ever more fundamental elements of cellular physiology (ending up ultimately at DNA as the primary explanatory element) there exists in reality a complex system of feedback pathways which enable the organism to act upon its own genetic material, altering the way that each gene is expressed in combination with others as a consequence of their whereabouts within the organism, or the conditions to which the organism may be subjected. Within this systems view of biological functioning, the complex pathways of interaction become the primary explanatory elements, rather than any of the physical components themselves.

This single insight provides several additional mechanisms for the operation of evolution through natural selection over and above the simplistic one of random gene mutation which is held in such high regard by today's neo-Darwinists, and reopens the door to the long-ridiculed notion of so-called Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics. It also calls into question the wisdom of, for instance, neurologists seeking the physical location of "the self" within the prescient organism; within Noble's view of things, such concepts as "the self" cease to have any likelihood of an actual physical presence (as separate, identifiable entities within the organism) but instead become emergent functional properties of a level of operation of the biological system itself.

It should be clear by now that this book presents serious challenges to a great deal of current biological dogma and there will be many readers for whom this book is an eye-opener. It is an easy and entertaining read for anyone with even a smattering of science and regardless of whether or not you finally come to agree with Denis Noble, you can be sure you'll find what he has to say interesting and enlightening.

Life, the universe and everything?
I found this book really fascinating - it clearly explains some very complex research and has an underpinning philosophical thesis which is very thought provoking. In some ways this book is autobiographical because Denis Noble is at the later stage of his career and thinking back to how his research interests have changed from being reductionist through examining the individual components of the body, to the development of a systems approach to living beings. His points of reference include the Chinese language, buddhism and large concert organs and these help to illustrate some of the philosophical questions he is exploring in the age-old quest to explain life, the universe and everything! I'm going to re-read the book and ponder it further.....

Puts Biology back into Biology
Denis Noble's book describes the "new" biology that has come to be known as systems biology. In the book he argues for a paradigm change in biology. This book should be read by all potential systems biologists as it shows how the term has been hijacked by those who secretly still subscribe to the reductionist paradigm and who cannot trully embrace how biology used to be.

In the book Prof Noble makes a plea to look at biological problems across levels and to take a pragmatic middle out approach. He is not against reductionism but his point is that if you reduce too far you can go below the scale where the biological property actually exists!

The book uses the metaphor of music and this is compelling although I find the last two chapters much less convincing than the rest of the book. This is more about thinking and how we need to think in biology than the science itself and he makes a powerful case that the dogma of the molecule has not lead us in the right direction.