Denis Noble, age 86, explains why taking up ballroom dancing during the last year and debating Richard Dawkins achieved the same critical mission. This is an absolutely fantastic interview and a joy to read.
Blog
The Denis Noble – Richard Dawkins debate is finally released. New Vanguard vs. Old Guard. It’s a marketing lesson par excellence.
Denis Noble in his debate with Richard Dawkins
The debate is online here:
https://evo2.org/denis-noble-debates-richard-dawkins-full-video/
Since I’m in the marketing profession I have a few comments about this. There is a marketing lesson that even a person who neither knows nor cares about the techie stuff can learn from (and non-techies can learn a great deal from this debate just by watching Denis Noble, observing how he handles himself).
THE PROBLEM:
Denis Noble debates Richard Dawkins:
Is it time to retire the Selfish Gene?
High-level thinkers at Oxford University prodded Richard Dawkins to defend his Selfish Gene theory for years. He finally relented and debated Denis Noble in June 2022 at the UK’s How the Light Gets In festival. Read more »
LIVE DEBATE Oxford professor Denis Noble locked horns with Richard Dawkins in June at the How the Light Gets In UK conference. Is The Selfish Gene holding back medicine and cancer cures? The world’s most incendiary evolutionary biologist asks if we need to rethink DNA.
The debate was both cordial and revealing. One thing that is quite clear from this debate is that Dawkins’ knowledge of biology and genetics lags 20-30 years behind current research.
The best part of this debate was how civil it was. In a world of hyper-polarization – and evolutionary biology historically being one of the worst fields in this regard – the friendly dialogue between the two was refreshing. Dawkins demonstrates great respect for Denis Noble. Appropriately so, since Noble was on Dawkins’ PhD thesis review committee and the two have been friends and colleagues for 50 years.
“Negentropy” or Negative Entropy is a term coined by Erwin Schrodinger in 1943 to describe how life turns disorder into order, which runs in the opposite direction of normal thermodynamics and even “Murphy’s Law.” Only life does this, and to date no one understands what principle or property enables life to do this.
|
SECULAR NARRATIVE Darwin’s theory of Evolution by Natural Selection vanquished childish notions of a creator. Life is ruthless competition of survival and reproduction. Nature is red in tooth and claw. Purpose in nature has been eradicated. Free will is an illusion. Science and religion are at war. There are no miracles. Skepticism is a virtue. Life is random. We are lumbering robots, vehicles for our selfish genes. |
|
RENAISSANCE NARRATIVE The cosmos is divinely ordered and we are privileged to discover it. The signature genius of evolution is higher levels of cooperation. Life is a gift. It is purposeful at every level. Science explores a world that is orderly, mathematical, elegant and beautiful. Science is an act of worship, a window into the mind of a master architect. We are part of the ecosystem and have a responsibility to care for it.
|
Martin Schweiger is a patent attorney in Singapore who has facilitated thousands of patent cases. Martin sees more innovations and inventions in a week than most people see in a year. In this article he reviews my book Evolution 2.0 from the perspective of an engineer who asks questions about biology.
Perry Marshall, author of Evolution 2.0 and founder of the $10 million prize for the origin of a spontaneously arising communication system, joins Glen Reuschling, retired engineer, and Karen Wong to discuss the fundamental nature of information, choice, and the observer. Read more »
Karen Wong has a longtime interest in origins and evolution and we discuss what happens when you shift the definition of evolution. Old definition: Changes in gene frequencies acted upon by natural selection. New definition: Self-awareness at fractal levels of scale.
