The Giants Shoulder

#95 Philip Ball: "Biology Is Infinitely Weirder Than We Thought"

Feb 17, 2026
Guest
Philip Ball
Philip Ball, former Nature editor and prolific science writer, rethinks genes, development, and agency in life. He explains why genomes are resources not blueprints. He highlights self-organization, stochastic cellular decisions, and how higher-level structures shape causation. He explores where agency might begin and why metaphors have steered biology off course.
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INSIGHT

Development As Dynamical Landscapes

  • Cell differentiation maps to dynamical landscapes with attractors and basins of attraction.
  • Cells can be nudged between attractors (e.g., reprogramming to stem states) by small interventions.
INSIGHT

Causal Power Emerges At Higher Levels

  • Causal emergence: higher-level structures can have more causal power than components.
  • Emergent system-level causation explains phenomena you cannot predict from parts alone.
INSIGHT

Proteins Moonlight Through Structural Flexibility

  • Proteins often 'moonlight' with multiple, context-dependent functions enabled by structural disorder.
  • Evolution favors flexible, highly connected proteins that serve many roles across networks.
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