The Thin End

27/08/2024

Darwin was fascinated by plant growth and responsiveness. Less known than his epic on evolution, he wrote a book on phototropism, The Power of Movement in Plants, in which he developed his ideas on natural selection.

As a zoologist, I always remembered that I needed to study botany sufficiently if only to understand the intimate interrelationships between plants and animals. The one cannot be truly understood without the other. There was a time when this was understood in medicine, and medical students would also study botany. Still, the most effective drugs are plant based. One of the earliest dates back in origin at least to the Sumerian period. Hippocrates referred to the use of salicylic tea for reducing fevers around 400 BC, and willow bark preparations were part of Western medicine in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. Aspirin is now widely prescribed to help prevent cardiac and a host of other diseases.

Plant sense and perception

Darwin would perhaps not be surprised that the expression of hundreds of genes is altered following mechanical stimulus in climbing plants, and about 2.5% of the genome is responsive to touch. It is a good example of how the system controls the genome. Furthermore, plants sense the environment around them. By studyng the trajectories of pea tendrils as they reach out for the support, it has been shown the plants not only respond to the presence of an object before touching it (yes, before touching it!) they also perceive the object is three-dimensions and how thick it is! The researchers in this study exposed the plant to a picture (yes a picture!) of the real support (a wooden pole) and observed tendrils’ kinematics was similar to the condition in which no support was offered. That is the plant responded as if it was the real pole! Even plants, it seems, have an epistimology :) For those interested, I give the reference below.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218304561

Raymond Noble is an author of Understandng Living Systems, Cambridge University Press, available from all book retailers.

Plants are able to sense external mechanical stress, such as those due to gravity or obstacles, and alter their growth accordingly [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, …

20/08/2024

Another tactic of the adherents to the "modern synthesis" in response to our book is to say "no leading evolution scientist supports what they say." This is a rather silly argument to which we could reply few leading physiologists support what they say about how our bodies work and how we interact with each other! It is rather a silly and somewhat childish approach. Another tactic is to say that the modern synthesis has changed and, ludicrously, some have claimed it is no longer, or even that it was never gene-centric! All very bizarre. We recall a meeting at the Royal Society in London in 2016 (which many of them tried to stop with a round robin letter to the President) when the few modern synthesis adherents present certainly put a gene-centric view, and got very cross that anyone would challenge it.

Those of us who worked in physiology departments remember how difficult it became to get funding for systems work, while billions of dollars was being pumped into the genome project on the basis there would be a gene-based personalised medicine arising from it. It didn't and hasn't. That is not to dismiss the value of the genome work, but increasingly it became clear that you could only understand genes in the functioning of a system that controls them. If they don't think that is physiology, then I suggest they think about what physiology is. Yet, they imagine that physiologists and other systems biologists would remain silent because they are not "evolution specialists". Well we won't and we haven't. It is sad and disheartening that for so many decades a sensible dialogue was obstructed. Now at least a dialogue of sorts is underway. There are better ways of looking at life.

Our book, Understanding Living Systems, is published by Cambridge University Press and is available from all book retailers.

17/08/2024

In my review of this most important book I show you how biology is beginning to move beyond the concept of the 'selfish gene' and turning to a more co-operat...

11/07/2024

Receiving an invitation to a 20-year reunion of a class of medical students I taught at UCL made me think of my first publication in the Journal of Physiology, which was 45 years ago. I remember how proud I was to see my name in print in the journal. At that time, I was completing my PhD, which, in general terms, addressed a simple question: how does a living system locate a stimulus on the skin? Part of the answer lies in the somatotopic organisation or representation of the body in the central nervous system, forming the substantive part of my thesis. Being aware of our body is a particular function of living systems. When relaxing, I often free myself as much as possible from external events and concentrate on the sensation from parts of my body, from head to toe. I feel the movement of my body as I breathe and the sensation of my body in space and in the moment. The physiological basis is many different kinds of receptors in our bodies. Some, the proprioceptors, create the feeling of position. In general, we take this extraordinary faculty of senses for granted. Yet, it is a fundamental part of our self-awareness.

27/06/2024

We tend to take sides but it is often the wrong approach

21/06/2024

Comments on our book keep coming: "I love it", "amazing points", "A breath of fresh air", "incredible insights", "flips one hundred years of biology dogma on its head."
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Living-Systems-Life/dp/1009277367/ref=monarch_sidesheet

19/06/2024

This is a lovely review from the US of our book Understanding Living Systems. It summarises a vital point of the book well.

"I saw Andrea Morris interview Denis Noble and I heard about this book. Packed with great insights. Dispels modern myths about the role of genes as determinant.
Denis asks, "Where are the cures?" A very good question. If genes determine everything and we have dissected the genome we ought to be curing everything, but we are not.
Denis and Raymond put genetics in their true context as part of a complex self-organizing organism.
Genes are not the ghost in the machine.
Organisms are not machines and there are no ghosts."

18/06/2024

In the 1970s I had the pleasure of meeting the great neuroscientist Sir John Eccles when he came to give the Gifford lectures in Edinburgh. The Dean of our faculty graciously invited us to meet the Nobel laureate at a garden party. The Self and Its Brain, which he had coauthored with Karl Popper, had recently been published. For us, humble graduate students, it was indeed an honour. I was then working on somatosensory neuronal networks, so it was particularly so for me. However, the discussion I had with the great man was a bit disappointing. Whilst he was heavily influenced by Popper’s open systems approach, I think he had a rather mechanistic view of brain function and that led him to being an ardent dualist, body and mind. So much so that he conceived a particular part of the brain involved in the liaison between the two: he called it the liaison brain. Apart from that I liked their book and the dialogues between the two authors. I delve into even now. In some ways it produced the nested, open functionality that is a major part of our book, Understanding Living Systems. Our view is heavily influenced by Popper.

15/06/2024

We are up there with The Selfish Gene in the best-seller lists. Organisms are niche-creators acting as agents in evolution.

07/06/2024

Understanding Living Systems, Raymond Noble and Denis Noble, Cambridge University Press.

"Takes the story of evolution from where Darwin left it, including his ideas on creative purpose and acquired characteristics. By adding the control of chance by organisms, it makes Darwin's theories compatible with the freedom to choose. Elegantly and clearly written, at the hopeful core truth of our lives."

Samuel Shem, Professor of Medical Humanities at NYU School of Medicine, USA; author of the best-selling The House of God and The Spirit of the Place.

Life is definitively purposive and creative. Organisms use genes in controlling their destiny. This book presents a paradigm shift in understanding living systems. The genome is not a code, blueprint or set of instructions. It is a tool orchestrated by the system. This book shows that gene-centri...

21/05/2024

I grew up on a council estate in London in the 1950s and 1960s and left school at 15. I wasn't destined to go to university. My penultimate school report said they "could see no reason why public money should be wasted on the attempted education of this boy!" I have always had a social conscience, so I left school. Our circumstances do not define us; we have the power to make choices in life. Economic and social circumstances often limit these choices. When my father died in 1957, we were suddenly impoverished. My mother frequently struggled to pay the rent and put food on the table. I have never known anyone who worked harder than she did. She was a tailor, as had been my father. So she sewed and sewed to make ends meet. In the daytime, she worked in Savile Row in the west end of London; in the evening, she brought back work, sewing, always as she listened to the radio and later the television when we got one. These were formative years. It takes a staggering 20 or more years for the human brain to organize itself with the complexity of the billions of neural connections and pathways. Our interactions with the world around us guide it. We are in the process of becoming, and perhaps it never finishes until the very end of our lives. Our genes do not define us; we use them as tools. They don't make us who we are. If you want to learn more, you can read our little book, "Understanding Living Systems," published by Cambridge University Press.

The overwhelming success of genetics and molecular biology in the 1970s had an unfortunate side effect. DNA became the 'be all' and 'end all' of biology and ...

14/05/2024

Still in the bestseller lists, our book, Understanding Living Systems is published by Cambridge University Press.

"Life is definitively purposive and creative. Organisms use genes in controlling their destiny. This book presents a paradigm shift in understanding living systems. The genome is not a code, blueprint or set of instructions. It is a tool orchestrated by the system. This book shows that gene-centrism misrepresents what genes are and how they are used by living systems. It demonstrates how organisms make choices, influencing their behaviour, their development and evolution, and act as agents of natural selection. It presents a novel approach to fundamental philosophical and cultural issues, such as free-will. Reading this book will make you see life in a new light, as a marvellous phenomenon, and in some sense a triumph of evolution. We are not in our genes, our genes are in us."

'The Noble brothers have done an enormous service to biological understanding of evolution in this short book.' Anthony Trewavas, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh, UK

08/05/2024

I agree with Richard Dawkins on one thing, at least. Belief is holding something to be true regardless of the evidence. At a meeting in Oxford in 1976, I once heard him say, "I am not a philosopher; I am only interested in the truth."
The physiologist Carlos Ojeda, who was present, then interjected, "Ah, yes, but what is truth?"
Carlos's question, 'Ah, yes, but what is truth?' is significant. Even in science, inconvenient truths can often be discarded or ignored.

For many decades, it was widely believed that epigenetic change cannot be passed through to the offspring. However, a substantial body of evidence now shows that it can and does. Richard Dawkins' argument that this only persists for a few generations is not supported by the evidence. Therefore, we must conclude that it is simply a belief.

Richard Dawkins still maintains the belief that a barrier to the germ line prevents transmission to the offspring. He said as much in his debate with Denis Noble last year. The concept of a 'barrier' was proposed as a belief, with the understanding that it must be true. Otherwise, characteristics acquired in one generation could be transmitted to offspring.

As a physiologist, when I see a 'barrier', I envision something more akin to the blood-brain barrier, which selectively allows substances through. Most boundaries in living systems operate in this manner. It is these boundaries and their conditions that play a crucial role in function, a fact supported by a vast body of evidence accumulated throughout the history of biology as a scientific discipline.

For more, read our book, Understanding Living Systems, published by Cambridge University Press.

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05/05/2024

I think I surprised everyone by choosing to study zoology. My interests were in politics, philosophy and economics. But these interests continue to influence my understanding of what life is and how it works. I hope when you read our book, Understanding Living Systems, you will see how. It presents a paradigm shift in our understanding of living systems. https://www.cambridge.org/9781009277365

02/05/2024

When I was teaching, I always felt there was this bit of science that had fundamentally strayed from its empirical roots. Considering genes as primary causality in an unusual linear sequence had become a dogma. Francis Crick, a significant proponent, had himself called it such, and with such an imperious advocate, it was almost beyond question. It sat badly with me because it defied scholarship. It became the core of a belief system. Our book, Understanding Living Systems, reveals this dogma and its consequences and proposes an alternative approach. Genes are a tightly controlled part of the faculty of life, not its master. https://www.cambridge.org/9781316620113

29/04/2024

I recall some years ago attending a symposium at which Denis presented our ideas about agency in evolution. Much of the meeting was embedded in the gene-centric view and the mathematics of population genetics.
"Our models work! Why change them?" One eminent participant responded. It was, and still is, a regular reply to our work. This summarises our simple answer:

No, they don't, because they only work if you ignore agency and purpose, which is why you say agency and purpose are an illusion and don't exist or that they can't change anything if they do. In any case, our models work, too, and are based on different mathematics. Our models can at least explain how the heart beats; yours can't. Our models can also explain how and why your heart beats faster or slower. Your models don't and can't. Your models assume genes control organisms; ours assumes organisms use and control genes. Also, our models show how adaptations in one generation can be transmitted to future generations. Yours don't. For so long, you said it can't happen! You were so convinced it couldn't happen that you invented a barrier. Now, you say it only occurs over a few generations.

Who are we? We are physiologists. We study how organisms adapt to change. We are zoologists and botanists who study how organisms behave and do things. We are ecologists who study the intricate web of relationships in our ecosystems and how organisms obtain and use information from it. We are philosophers who consider the words we use and why we use them. You would have us ignore all this because you count genes in a mythical gene pool."

We agree with the late John Maynard Smith, who pointed out that evolutionary game theory doesn't explain change. At best, it is designed to explain why a given change might persist in the population. Our book makes the point that evolution is a process of adaptive change.

Understanding Living Systems, by Raymond and Denis Noble, is published by Cambridge University Press and is available from all bookshops.

20/04/2024

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FoHZI1zZ_BhY%3Fsi%3DgALkqRyRRp_N7iA6&h=AT3XlaCSZo3STbvccs7I0M_tjrblflfSClXZy43X7nM04kQDZGm2Tout7GA1PuTjUivwkt4pCM_vxDXBtsZSBAFsMmOPPXh8eiVsfjTsgn8Kaw2K2uKHTNJYnW6sxzzcaTXAg1oQKUD6Fskhe7Lv0OY&s=1

The overwhelming success of genetics and molecular biology in the 1970s had an unfortunate side effect. DNA became the 'be all' and 'end all' of biology and ...

29/03/2024

"A really important book for educators of ALL disciplines!!!"

"Flips 100 years of biology dogma on its head"

"Book that correctly situates the new direction of biological sciences on understandable reasoning and language"

Amazon reviews.

Understanding Living Systems, Cambridge University Press.
www.cambridge.org/9781009277365

09/02/2024

Understanding Living Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Had there been room for a chapter on soil, and our dependency on it, then it would say our soil is a precious asset and we should look after it. SSoil Association

Life is definitively purposive and creative. Organisms use genes in controlling their destiny. This book presents a paradigm shift in understanding living systems. The genome is not a code, blueprint or set of instructions. It is a tool orchestrated by the system. This book shows that gene-centri...

03/02/2024

Looking back to my days as a student of zoology, the days spent on field trips were significant in increasing my awareness and understanding. Simply taking bits of nature into a laboratory is insufficient, particularly for understanding the ecological significance of function. Much of this underpins the message of our little book, Understanding Living Systems.

05/01/2024

FB invited me to "boost" a post on my Thin End Page, yet then rejected it for the following reasons:

"Your ad may have been rejected because it mentions politicians or is about sensitive social issues that could influence public opinion on how people vote and may affect the outcome of an election or pending legislation. Our policy for running ads about social issues, elections or politics requires you to become authorised first by confirming your identity and creating a disclaimer that lists who is paying for the ads."

My post was about Aardvark thermoregulation. I am a biologist, for goodness sake! Yet talking about the importance of thermoregulation and diet in these creatures is clearly deemed too sensitive by Facebook! What do you think?

You can read my piece at

The global warming threat to aardvarks may give indicators of how ecosystems will be affected when pushed to their limits.

04/01/2024

❄️ The eerie screeching of amorous foxes on a cold winter night is one of the defining sounds of the season!⁠
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🔉 Foxes can make around 28 sounds, but they are mostly silent animals. Calling is largely during the winter breeding season when they bark and screech loudly as they look to attract a mate and fend off rivals.⁠
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🦊 Mating typically occurs in January, with a litter of cubs born in an underground den in the spring.

🔗 Head to our website to learn more about our fascinating foxes⁠: https://bit.ly/41iyT7u

04/01/2024

Words for humanity to remember in 2024. 💚

04/01/2024

11/12/2023

COP28 is a cop-out.

11/12/2023

Aardvarks rarely drink water. The termites and ants provide food and also 90% of the water they need. This dependency is critical. So, if global warming affects the termites, it will also impact the aardvarks. Notably, it affects the aardvark’s ability to regulate body heat.

The global warming threat to aardvarks may give indicators of how ecosystems will be affected when pushed to their limits.

08/12/2023

A 20th Century Fairytale.

There is little doubt that the structure of DNA was an outstanding achievement of the 20th Century. Sadly, science created a fairytale: a pantomime with DNA as either the wicked witch (a primary cause of disease) or Cinderella, who would change into a princess. We gave it powers it simply does not have and pumped huge sums into a journey on the yellow brick road for the elusive answer to everything. But DNA is a tool of the system, not its mistress, and understanding the living system is the better road to follow for health and well-being; that is the true path for the Wizard of Oz.

Understanding Living Systems is available now. Could you order your copies for Christmas?

Cambridge Core - Genetics - Understanding Living Systems

08/12/2023

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas. Here's a great stocking filler. A new look at life.
"They challenge not only the medicine of reductionism, but the nihilism and despair as well. Though never explicitly stated, reading between the lines one can sense the authors' disdain for the pervasive belief that science has rendered life meaningless and narcissistic...Five stars all the way."

Life is definitively purposive and creative. Organisms use genes in controlling their destiny. This book presents a paradigm shift in understanding living systems. The genome is not a code, blueprint or set of instructions. It is a tool orchestrated by the system. This book shows that gene-centri...

07/01/2022

For the cost of 3 coffees a month

29/12/2021

Make your own eco-friendly cleaning solutions. https://fb.watch/ac4Y9oj0wj/