Year: 2022

NEGATIVE CORRELATION. "Various methods of preventing reproduction can extend life span, and reproductive effort is negatively correlated with life span across species." View in LinkedIn

LIFE SPAN VS FECUNDITY. "AP has also been tested in a long-running experiment using artificial selection for increased life span in Drosophila flies. After two years of selection, life span increased, while early fecundity declined, which corroborates the AP hypothesis. After further selection however, life span continued to rise, while fecundity also rose at all ages, including early in life." (AP = antagonistic pleiotrophy hypothesis). View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE features the thinking of Professor Denis Nobel, the brilliant polymath Oxford University academic, in his article entitled: “A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation.” Denis Nobel is an exceptional and original thinker. Enjoy these philosophical ruminations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Noble View in LinkedIn

A BLUEPRINT FOR LIFE? “Are organisms encoded as molecular descriptions in their genes?’ And, second, ‘by analysing the genome, could we solve the forward problem of computing the behaviour of the system from this information, as was implied by the original idea of the “genetic program” and the more modern representation of the genome as the “book of life”?...The answer to both questions was ‘no’.” https://lnkd.in/dAdQzhV View in LinkedIn

THE ISSUE OF DIRECTIONALITY. “Must higher level biological processes always be derivable from lower level data and mechanisms, as assumed by the idea that an organism is completely defined by its genome? Or are higher level properties necessarily also causes of lower level behaviour, involving actions and interactions both ways?” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

“A PRIORI, there is no privileged level of causation.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

WHERE THINGS START. “Have we reached the limits of applicability of the relativity principle? And could it have relevance to biology? By ‘relativity principle’ in this context, I mean distancing ourselves in our theories from specific absolute standpoints for which there can be no a priori justification.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

THE FIXED CENTER FALLS APART. “First, we removed the idea of privileged location (so the Earth is not the centre of the Universe), then that of absolute velocity (since only relative velocities can be observed), then that of acceleration (an accelerating body experiences a force indistinguishable from that of gravity, leading to the idea of curved space–time). Could biology be the next domain for application of the relativity principle?” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

HIERARCHICAL THINKING. “In biological science, we are used to thinking in terms of a hierarchy of levels, with genes occupying the lowest level and the organism as a whole occupying the highest level of an individual. Protein and metabolic networks, intracellular organelles, cells, tissues, organs and systems are all represented as occupying various intermediate levels.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

DIRECTIONAL INFORMATION FLOW. “The reductionist causal chain is then represented by upward-pointing arrows from genes upwards to proteins and RNA, to cells and tissues and ultimately the organism.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn