RE: [asa] Interesting review of "The Selfish Gene"

At 09:56 AM 8/17/2006, Alexanian, Moorad wrote:

>Someone like Dawkins who seems to be a materialist must define for
>me what the word "selfish" means in terms of what he considers
>fundamental, which I suppose is matter-the purely physical.
>Similarly, how a gene, a living organism, arises from pure nonliving
>matter. Otherwise, the use of such terms is nonsensical and/or his
>claims are baseless. ~ Moorad

@ Try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

"...Andrew Brown has written:

"Selfish," when applied to genes, doesn't mean "selfish" at all. It
means, instead, an extremely important quality for which there is no
good word in the English language: "the quality of being copied by a
Darwinian selection process." This is a complicated mouthful. There
ought to be a better, shorter word but "selfish" isn't it.

A crude analogy can be found in the old saw about a chicken being
just an egg's way of making more eggs. In a similar inversion,
Dawkins describes biological organisms as "vehicles," with genes as
the "replicators" that create these organisms as a means of acquiring
resources and copying themselves. At the level of organisms, we can
see genes as being for some feature that might benefit the organism,
but at the level of genes, the sole implicit purpose is to benefit
themselves. A related concept here is the extended
phenotype http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extended_Phenotype , in
which the consequences of the genes to the environment outside the
organism are considered. [snip]

"..The book was extremely popular when first published, and continues
to be widely read. It has sold over a million copies, and been
translated into more than 25 languages. Proponents argue that the
central point, that the gene is the unit of selection, usefully
completes and extends the explanation of evolution given by Darwin
before the basic mechanisms of genetics were understood. Critics
argue that it oversimplifies the relationship between genes and the organism.

Most modern evolutionary biologists accept that the idea is
consistent with many processes in evolution. However, the view that
selection on other levels, such as organisms and populations, seldom
opposes selection on genes is more controversial. While naive
versions of group selectionism have been disproved, more
sophisticated formulations make accurate predictions in some cases
while positing selection at higher levels. Nevertheless, the
explanatory gains of using sophisticated formulations of group
selectionism as opposed to Dawkins' gene-centered selectionism is
still under dispute.

Some biologists have criticised the idea for describing the gene as
the unit of selection, but suggest describing the gene as the unit of
evolution, on the grounds that selection is a "here and now" event of
reproduction and survival, while evolution is the long-term trend of
shifting allele frequencies.[3]

Another criticism of the book, made by the philosopher Mary Midgley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgley in her book Evolution as a
Religion, is that it discusses philosophical and moral questions that
go beyond the biological arguments that Dawkins makes. For instance,
humanity finally gaining power over the "selfish replicators" is a
major theme at the end of the book. Dawkins has pointed out that he
is only describing how things are under evolution, not endorsing them
as morally good. Nevertheless, the gap between "is" and "ought" is
not always as clearcut as purported, and very easily transgressed.

The idea is sometimes mistakenly believed to support genetic
determinism. This is incorrect: knowing that an organism carries a
particular allele, we might be able to say that the organism is more
likely than otherwise to behave in a certain way, but its actual
behaviour will depend on its environment and its developmental
history. Of course, while this argumentation eschews genetic
determinism, it does not overcome determinism in a wider sense, for
environmental factors will still restrict the behavior of the
organism. Dawkins is quick to point out that, although humans may be
influenced by their genes, they are not controlled by them. Even
further from Dawkins' concept is the misunderstanding of the idea as
predicting (or even prescribing or justifying) that human behaviour
must inevitably be "selfish" in a moral or ethical sense. [snip]

~ Janice

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Received on Thu Aug 17 11:08:48 2006