Evidence map›Paper›PMID 21135048›Full record

ReviewThe Journal of physiology2011

Neo-Darwinism, the modern synthesis and selfish genes: are they of use in physiology?

Denis Noble

Open access · greenAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in The Journal of physiology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
21citing papers in PubMed
70.4field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

21 citing papers in PubMed, 135 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Trial
  2. Review
  3. Article
  4. Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024
    Review
  5. Article
  6. Modern physiology vindicates Darwin's dream.Experimental physiology · 2022
    Review
  7. KThe Journal of physiology · 2018
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Review
  10. Review
  11. Review
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Giant sucking sound: can physiology fill the intellectual void left by the reductionists?Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2011
    Review
  19. Systems biology and cancer.Progress in biophysics and molecular biology · 2011
    Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.

Denis NobleDepartment of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PT, UK. denis.noble@dpag.ox.ac.uk
Oxford Fertility · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

This article argues that the gene-centric interpretations of evolution, and more particularly the selfish gene expression of those interpretations, form barriers to the integration of physiological science with evolutionary theory. A gene-centred approach analyses the relationships between genotypes and phenotypes in terms of differences (change the genotype and observe changes in phenotype). We now know that, most frequently, this does not correctly reveal the relationships because of extensive buffering by robust networks of interactions. By contrast, understanding biological function through physiological analysis requires an integrative approach in which the activity of the proteins and RNAs formed from each DNA template is analysed in networks of interactions. These networks also include components that are not specified by nuclear DNA. Inheritance is not through DNA sequences alone. The selfish gene idea is not useful in the physiological sciences, since selfishness cannot be defined as an intrinsic property of nucleotide sequences independently of gene frequency, i.e. the 'success' in the gene pool that is supposed to be attributable to the 'selfish' property. It is not a physiologically testable hypothesis.

Indexed as

Biological EvolutionSystems BiologyAnimalsGenotypePhenotypeSelection, Genetic

Identifiers

PMID21135048
PMCPMC3060581
OpenAlexW1631883169

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.