Understanding Living Systems

Raymond Noble is Honorary Associate Professor at the Institute for Women's Health, University College London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and chartered biologist, writing extensively on biological theory and philosophy, working extensively on how organisms sense their environment. He held a Rockefeller Senior Research Fellowship with a joint appointment at University College London, where he became Deputy Dean of Life Sciences and Graduate Tutor in Women's Health. Denis Noble is Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society and was honoured by the Queen for his work in science. He discovered how protein channels in cell membranes of the heart automatically generate the electrical rhythm. This work Ied him to challenge the Neo-Darwinist gene-centric theory of evolution.

• Part I. Introduction: 1. The gene delusion; 2. Replication, reproduction and variation; 3. What evolves?; 4. Purpose in life; 5. Cry of the wolf; 6. Learning from the wood mouse; 7. Artificial intelligence; 8. Culture and cooperation; 9. People of the forest summary of common misunderstandings; References and Further reading; Figure credits; Index.

'This spirited, delightfully readable and accessible refutation of gene-centred biological orthodoxy offers a convincing account of living organisms as active agents and living systems, creatively shaping and responding and adapting to their environments. The authors propose that life resides in the purpose and creativity of the whole organism. Living organisms are not their genes, nor are they determined by - or reducible to - their genes. Instead, genes are tools that the organism actively adapts to further the ends chosen by the organism itself. Written for the non-specialist, while founded on decades of highly respected academic research, the authors' systems approach to our understanding of living organisms heralds a welcome return to common sense and an urgent resetting of our relationship to the natural world in the face of imminent environmental collapse.' Pauline Phemister, Professor of History of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, UK