Cover photograph
Jan Freeston
Voices from Oxford
This new book is much more than a
collection of key papers, valuable though that may be. It is
also an exciting autobiographical account of the 50 year
'journey' towards writing The Music of Life. The
controversies and milestones are captured in graphic stories
of the experiments, theories, debates and discussions that
led both to the creation of the virtual heart and the
IUPS Physiome Project. The papers selected are all key steps in
that process. The stories also describe the
philosophical development that led Denis Noble from a 20th century
towards a 21st century view of biology. The two are poles
apart. Not because they describe different science but
because the science is interpreted completely differently.
Orders can be made at
icpress
and on
Amazon
and from many of your favourite booksellers around the world
Publisher's description
This is a scientific and philosophical
autobiography written around a collection of Denis Noble's
most significant papers. It traces a remarkable journey from
naïve reductionism to a rigorous systems approach to living
systems. It is rigorous because Denis Noble was one of the
first biologists to construct computer models of cells and
organs of the body. His theoretical work is entirely
mathematically based, with no room for ambiguity. Far from
the denigration of the systems approach as holistic
‘hand-waving’, his work is now regarded by pharmaceutical
companies and regulators as the gold standard of modelling
in the development of new medication.
Systems Biology is an idea in search of a
definition. This book explains why this is true: it is an
approach rather than a subject. Denis Noble's work is one of
the clearest examples of the systems approach in practice
since it reveals the nature of some of the forms of downward
causation in multilevel analysis. The story will delight
readers who like to see how scientific controversy is
resolved, since many of the developments described in each
chapter were highly controversial when they occurred.
|