A New Dogma Of Molecular Biology: A Paradigm Shift

Forbes December 3, 2024
William A. Haseltine

Thomas Kuhn, in his groundbreaking book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, described a paradigm shift in science as a new understanding of nature that:

Is a sufficiently unprecedented theory to attract an enduring group of adherents.
A theory that is open-ended with many problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve.

This is precisely the nature of our new understanding of biology, which has occurred over the past twenty years and is now sufficiently advanced to offer a new paradigm.

The previous paradigm was given in what is called the central dogma.

DNA—> RNA—> Protein—> Phenotype

The dogma was enshrined in Jim Watson’s 1965 epic textbook The Molecular Biology of the Gene.

The theory holds that Gregor...