A new book with a new look reviewed by Ray Noble

Back in the 1976 Denis and I were driving the long distance haul from the Dordogne back to the UK. Much of our conversation was on the 'selfish gene' concept. We discussed in particular the concept of altruistic behaviour. Many biologists under the influence of genetic determinism were turning away from the view that any of our behaviour could be truly atruistic (a sacrifice of an individual's own benefit for the benefit of others). It was they argued only 'reciprocal altruism', a kind of 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours'; a behaviour designed for the mutual benefit of maintaining our genes in the gene pool. In this view we are simply robotic machines designed by the genes to carry them around and pass them on to future generations. The gene was the important ingredient of life determining all else, if only because it is the bit that gets passed on.

This gene centred view is as ridiculous as a notion that the most important bits of Shakespeare are not the words, the sentences, the ideas or the loves, hates, desires, the plots and intrigues, but the letters of the alphabet if only because they are the bits that get passed on from one book to the next or at best the individual words. But the words are harnessed in context, in rythm and rhyme and the emotions they conjure. They are transformed in a sentence. I write with purpose, and we cannot find that purpose in my genes. Genes are templates for proteins.

In this elegant book, Denis sets out an alternative to the gene's eye view which has dominated thinking over the last four decades. He poses a 'radical switch of perception' with genes as prisoners and the organism itself is a complex system of many interacting levels. Life emerges as a process, the ebb and flow of activity in the intricate web of connections, full of feedback between gene, protein, cell, organ, body and environment. This is a holistic view of biology and of ourselves.

In his book Denis uses music as a metaphor - the music of life.

Music of Life at the Book Shop