Has Science Forgotten Its Limits? | Denis Noble
Video from Socrates in the City
Has Science Forgotten Its Limits? | Denis Noble
"What is the difference between Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism? What was the great mistake Erwin Schrödinger made nearly 80 years ago? In this episode of Socrates in Oxford, host Eric Metaxas is joined by Denis Noble, the brilliant physiologist and biologist, as he challenges one of the most deeply rooted assumptions in modern science: that everything can ultimately be reduced to its smallest parts. From the rise of reductionism in biology and mathematics to the influential “selfish gene” theory, Noble examines how a particular scientific framework has come to shape our understanding of life itself.
Drawing on his own experience debating Richard Dawkins—and even serving on the committee for Dawkins’s PhD thesis—Noble offers a fascinating insider’s perspective on one of the most significant debates in modern evolutionary biology. This conversation asks, what happens when scientists refuse to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, even if that evidence raises questions about God? Noble argues that science is never merely scientific; it is deeply philosophical, shaped by the assumptions we bring to our understanding of reality. At the heart of his argument and this conversation is an invitation for scientific humility: the courage to recognize the limits of what we know and to remain open to where the evidence might ultimately lead." from the video introduction
0:00 Welcome to Socrates in the City & introducing Dennis Noble
4:08 Schrödinger, DNA, and the birth of deterministic biology
7:43 Modeling the heart & discovering stochasticity
14:21 Neo-Darwinism, the selfish gene, and predicting disease from DNA
20:28 Redundancy, purpose, and creativity in living systems
28:36 The finite monkeys theorem: can chance alone explain life?
33:41 Lamarck, epigenetics, and cracks in neo-Darwinism
39:19 Rethinking the central dogma & how cells self-correct
47:24 Consciousness, AI, and science's blind spot
54:26 Backlash, power, and the human genome project's legacy
1:05:14 What is life? Closing reflections
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