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DARWIN "conducted a 29-year experiment on chalk at a field near his house. Objects of all sorts "work themselves downards" as farmers say. Large stones sink because worms fill up any hollows with castings, then eject them beyond the perimeter and the ground around them starts to rise. He visited Stonehenge and found some outer stones partly buried, the turf sloping up to meet them." https://lnkd.in/exyGWjD View in LinkedIn

WORMS AND BILLIARDS. "Darwin conducted both lab experiments in his study and billiard room and field investigations in his extensive gardens. He published his findings in 1881 in a book titled The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations of their Habits. The book sold 6000 copies in its first year, selling faster than On the Origin of Species had when it was first published." https://lnkd.in/ebEFwre View in LinkedIn

SPECIES VAGUENESS. "In his most famous book On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1859) did not define what species are and how they can be distinguished from varieties. Darwin's relaxed opinion concerning species definitions may have been the reason why he did not identify the species of earthworms he was investigating." https://lnkd.in/e8jbAfG View in LinkedIn

"NOBEL has proposed Ten Principles of Systems Biology: Biological functionality is multi-level; Transmission of information is not one way; DNA is not the sole transmitter of inheritance; The theory of biological relativity: there is no privileged level of causality; Gene ontology will fail without higher-level insight; There is no genetic program; There are no programs at any other level; There are no programs in the brain; The self is not an object; There are many more to be discovered; a genuine ‘theory of biology’ does not yet exist." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Noble View in LinkedIn

40 YEAR PROJECT. "Darwin’s association and interest with earthworms came shortly after his famous voyage on the HMS Beagle. His uncle showed him a spot in his garden where he had spread ashes and lime several years before. Darwin was amazed to see how soil cast up by earthworms had buried the substances. He went home and began a series of earthworm experiments that would go for the next 40 years." https://lnkd.in/ebEFwre View in LinkedIn

PROF DENIS NOBLE. "His 2006 book The Music of Life examines some of the basic aspects of systems biology, and is critical of the ideas of genetic determinism and genetic reductionism. He points out that there are many examples of feedback loops and "downward causation" in biology, and that it is not reasonable to privilege one level of understanding over all others. He also explains that genes in fact work in groups and systems, so that the genome is more like a set of organ pipes than a "blueprint for life". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Noble View in LinkedIn

HISTORICAL ROLE. “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.” (Charles Darwin 1881). " " https://lnkd.in/e3HEbhg View in LinkedIn

"THE MUSIC OF LIFE: it is being played but nobody is playing it. The music of life has no conductor. What directs the music of life? Is it genes? Or is it not rather that they are like the pipes in a huge organ played by the organism?" (Prof Nobel, lecture on his book, The Music Of Life). https://www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/team/denis-noble View in LinkedIn

DARWIN WROTE, “No other creature on earth has done so much for mankind” as earthworms. https://lnkd.in/eZmt3Ts View in LinkedIn

GENE CONCEPT IN FLUX. "The term “gene” is a theoretical construct whose functional properties and physical structure have never been possible to define rigorously. It is telling that genome sequence annotators used to call protein-coding regions (chiefly in prokaryotic DNA) “genes,” but now use the more neutral terms CDS, for “coding sequence." http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people/view/james-a-shapiro View in LinkedIn