There’s virtue in that picture [of the genome as a ‘highly sensitive organ of the cell’], but I think it points to a wider consideration: that the best narratives and metaphors for thinking about how life works come not from our technologies (machines, computers) but from life itself. … The ‘organic technology’ of language, where meaning arises through context and cannot be atomised into component parts, is a constantly useful analogy. Life must be its own metaphor.
And shouldn’t we have seen that all along? For what, after all, is extraordinary – and challenging to scientific description – about living matter is not its molecules but its aliveness, its agency. It seems odd to have to say this, but it’s time for a biology that is life-centric.