IMB Seminar Series - Professor John Mattick AO FAA FAHMS HonFRCPA - The reformation of molecular biology and evolution

Event Details

Date:

Friday, 06 May 2016

Time:

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm

Room:

QBP Auditorium

UQ Location:

Queensland Bioscience Precinct (St Lucia)

URL:

Event category(s):

Full Description:: The conceptual frameworks of developmental biology and evolution were framed by the mechanical mindset of the last century, informed more by preconception than evidence. Despite several shocks that should have given pause for thought, these preconceptions and their associated assumptions have persisted, aided by reductionism. These include the assumptions that most genetic information is transacted by proteins (therefore introns are junk), that combinatorial control of gene expression can explain vast differences in organismal complexity and brain function (never justified with reference to decision theory), that evolution explores by random mutation, and that the soma cannot transmit information to the germline. It is high time that molecular biology was liberated from its primitive and ignorant origins. Heresies abound. Profound insights await concerning human development, evolution and cognition, as well as the optimal structure of integrated complex systems. The 21st, not the 20th, will be the century of enlightenment in biology and medicine.