A major revolution is occurring in evolutionary biology. In this video the President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences, Professor Denis Noble, explains what is happening and why it is set to change the nature of biology and the importance of physiology to that change. The lecture was given to a large general audience at a major international Congress in Suzhou, China. The implications of the change extend far beyond biology itself. This video will also interest economists, business leaders, politicians and others who deal with the important social questions that have been raised by ideas in evolutionary biology ever since Darwin wrote his
Origin of Species. To share the excitement see
reactions worldwide and the
article. A new version of the lecture will be given at the Opening of the
IUPS 2013 Congress. Answers to questions frequently found on blogsites discussing the video and the article can be found
here.
Key quotations from the article:All the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis (often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproven. Moreover, they have been disproven in ways that raise the tantalising prospect of a totally new synthesis: one that would allow a re-integration of physiological science with evolutionary biology. It is hard to think of a more fundamental change for physiology, and for the conceptual foundations of biology in general.
My article returns to a more nuanced, less dogmatic, view of evolutionary theory which is much more in keeping with the spirit of Darwin’s own ideas than is the Neo-Darwinist view.
To Maynard Smith’s comment (“it is hard to conceive of a mechanism whereby it [Lamarckism] could occur”) the reply must be that some of those mechanisms have now been found and they are robust.
The organism should never have been relegated to the role of mere carrier of its genes.