Very good and refreshing!

The questions at the end are worth listening. The lecture is very philosophical but it makes a point.

Great lecture. I like his point on metaphors. However, I find funny how he says that non-dualistic philosophies (no right and wrong) are right.

Interesting critique of Richard Dawkins' genecentric view of Biology. I think it is possible that because Dawkins is aiming at a mass audience he adopts metaphor and perhaps takes it beyond the point where it is truly valid for the sake of not confusing the lay person. Noble is targeting a much more sophisticated audience and so doesn't have to compromise the complexity. Another way of viewing Noble's position is that he is trying to reassert the status of Physiology as a discipline after it has suffered because of the explosion in molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics etc. He is completely correct that the end point of the reductionist approach has to be able to recreate the system in model form. If you can do that and replicate all of its behaviours this is the only way you can know that you truly understand it. This is the future of physiology - to integrate all of the molecular and cellular information back to the organ (and ultimately whole body) level.