Denis Noble Quotes

In the Anglo-Saxon world the debate has been dominated by arguments between the gene-centered views of people like Richard Dawkins... and the multi-level selection views of people like Stephen Jay Gould... The gene-centered view... is a metaphorical polemic: the invention of a colourful metaphor to interpret scientific discovery. It is not a straightforward empirical scientific hypothesis.

DNA does nothing outside the context of a cell containing these protein systems, just as a CD can do nothing without a CD reader. So we have the paradox that proteins are required for the machinery to read the code to produce the proteins.

[T]here is no one-to-one correspondence between genes and biological functions. Strictly... to speak of a 'gene for x' is always incorrect.

Every time a is needed, the appropriate chemical 'code' is 'read off' the ; this gives the pattern of chemical elements that will make that what it is. Our genes encode the sequences of 100 000 or so proteins that make up the human body.

[T]here is no privileged level of causation, which is the central statement of the theory of Biological Relativity.

[T]he book begins with the fundamentals of physics and cosmology, yet ends with the fundamentals of biology and the limits to our knowledge. ...[T]here are many links between these various threads.

[S]ome very influential twentieth-century biologists presented a simplistic gene-centered view...

Proteins are produced in tiny factories inside the cells... Biologists call them ribosomes. ...A DNA sequence that corresponds to the relevant protein sequence is copied onto another molecule... called a 'messenger', which transmits a form of the sequence to the ribosomes. The messenger molecules, called ... are another kind of sequence. The DNA sequences are... a kind of template... sequence of s... transcribed to produce the message... translated into an amino-acid sequence when the protein is made. (s are the units of which protein is made, just as nucleotides are the units of which DNA is composed).

[T]he book of life is life itself. It cannot be reduced to just one of its databases. ...[T]he genome is only one of its databases. Function... depends also on... properties... not specified by genes.

[I]f genes dance, they have been doing so for... most of the period of the Earth's existence... about 4.5 billion years.

[T]here is no complete programme in our DNA. Programmes... are distributed across scales in the organism.

A living cell is a continuous action-packed drama. ...Complex chains of molecular interaction happen again and again. We call them 'pathways'... And proteins form the backbone of all these biochemical pathways.

[L]iving organisms are open systems. ...All the molecules, organs and systems dance to the tune of the organism and its social context. Those molecules include the sequences of DNA we now call s.

[I]f a gene consists of three exons, a, b, and c, it could be read as a, b, c, ab, bc, ac, abc, and perhaps... as cba, ca, ba, each... code for a different protein. At present we do not know the rules...

[T]he music of life has no conductor.