EPISODE · Jul 10, 2026 · 1H 30M
#136 - Denis Noble: Neo-Darwinism, Michael Levin & Why The Last 70 Years of Genetics Is Wrong
from The Giants Shoulder · host Evan McGloughlin
Get Jenni Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off) - http://jenni.ai/utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulderGet Manta Sleep Mask: https://bit.ly/4ilzfBL and Code GIANTSMANTA10Denis Noble is the physiologist who built the first computer model of the heart in 1960 — and has spent the sixty years since using it to dismantle the gene-centric view of life that dominates modern biology. He took Richard Dawkins's Selfish Gene and rewrote its most famous passage word for word in reverse — and every single experiment still fits.Expect to learn why the central dogma of molecular biology is provably wrong, how your immune system rewrites its own DNA to fight off new viruses, why the peppered moth story in every biology textbook turns out to be false, what happened when Denis told Richard Dawkins "Lamarck is back" to his face, why a cell corrects roughly 800,000 DNA replication errors before it's allowed to divide, how epigenetic inheritance can persist indefinitely if the environment stays changed, whether plants might have a form of experience, and where exactly agency ends and pure chemistry begins.Timestamps0:00:00 Trailer0:02:27 Meet The Man Who Modeled The Heart By Hand0:04:43 Why The Central Dogma Of Biology Is Wrong0:06:39 The 1866 Split Between Darwin And Wallace0:09:02 The Infinite Monkey Theorem, Tested For Real0:17:30 The Peppered Moth Myth Textbooks Still Teach0:20:19 The Nobel Laureate Textbooks Forgot To Cite0:22:53 Telling Richard Dawkins "Lamarck Is Back"0:27:43 Was Lamarck's Giraffe Neck Story Actually Right?0:29:40 How Your Body Talks To Your DNA0:38:17 A New Species Evolved In Two Generations0:44:18 So What's Actually Controversial Here?0:48:09 Cellular Agency: When Cells Act Like Organisms0:53:04 Steelmanning The Case Against Cellular Agency0:55:05 The 17th-Century Prediction That Proved Purpose Works1:04:20 Your Cells Correct 800,000 DNA Errors Per Division1:13:14 Life Lives On The Edge Of Order And Chaos1:15:27 Do Plants Have Experience?1:27:31 How Does Consciousness Fit Into Systems Biology?...... Email for sponsorship enquiries: [email protected] Episodes MentionedMichael Levin — Meet the Scientist Creating New Forms of Synthetic Life! Dr Michael Levin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTBZRVKUwyMPhilip Ball — Philip Ball: "Biology Is Infinitely Weirder Than We Thought": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SseGx0R0fYGuest LinksOxford Faculty Page: https://www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/team/denis-noblePersonal Website: https://www.denisnoble.comGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=J6kLmsIAAAAJ&hl=enUnderstanding Living Systems (Book): https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Living-Systems-Life/dp/1009277367The Third Way of Evolution: https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people/view/denis-noble
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#136 - Denis Noble: Neo-Darwinism, Michael Levin & Why The Last 70 Years of Genetics Is Wrong
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