Remember that Fate of Darwinism paper? Here’s what it says on Dawkins’ selfish gene …
| February 3, 2012 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Genetics, News |
Here, in “The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution After the Modern Synthesis,” David J. Depew • Bruce H. Weber in Biol Theory (2011) 6:89–102 DOI 10.1007/s13752-011-0007-1:
Among gene-centered interpretations, Richard Dawkins’s well-known ‘‘selfish gene’’ hypothesis stands out (Dawkins [1979] 1989). This hypothesis proposed to reduce the potential conflict between molecular and population genetics by reformulating the Modern Synthesis from a gene’s-eye point of view. According to Dawkins, DNA makes as many copies of itself as it can simply because that is what (allegedly) self-replicating molecules like DNA do. Genes are stretches of DNA that stick together through meiotic division by being translated into proteins that fold up to make cell types and tissue. These make phenotypes and the organisms that bear them. Some phenotypes enable the organisms that carry them to interact with environments in ways that reproductively outcompete others. This has the effect of increasing the representation of the genes that code for these more effective phenotypes. This ‘‘genocentric’’ model favors natural selection over other ‘‘forces’’ and accordingly assumes that most traits are adaptations. This ‘‘empirical adaptationism’’ is the Modern Synthesis all right, but it is a version of it that assigns not only causal but directional force to the inherent moremaking capacity of ‘‘selfish genes.’’
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This approach involves, however, an entirely speculative account of human evolution. Selfish gene theory, like most adaptationist versions of the Modern Synthesis, sees organisms as assemblies of relatively discreet adaptations. Accordingly, it has been favored by cognitive and behavioral scientists, who like to portray mental states as supervening on a set of functionally dedicated modules localized in specific parts of the brain. Natural selection, according to the argument of so-called evolutionary psychologists,evolved these adaptations, many of which tend to naturalize traditional gender roles, at an early period in human history (Barkow et al. 1992). Like its predecessor,sociobiology, evolutionary psychology has encouraged dissemination of the selfish gene version of the Modern Synthesis to the public as a way of connecting the social to the biological sciences in a quasi-reductionist manner aimed at justifying oft-frustrated hopes for a genuinely scientific, biologically grounded theory of human evolution.
See also: New mainstream paper: Darwinism can no longer be “a general framework for evolutionary theory”
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Like selfish gene theory, ardent advocates of sequencing the human genome as well as the genomes of the fruit fly, mouse, flatworm, and other model species typically construed organisms as collections of discreet adaptations, each of which is ‘‘read out only’’ from segments of genomes conceived as instruction manuals, blueprints, or computer programs for making organisms. Connected as they were to promises about genetic medicine, which, it was supposed, would eventually enable doctors to identify genes gone bad and replace them like burnt-out light bulbs, the HGP raised expectations for cures of inherited diseases in the public mind that were greeted with great suspicion by evolutionists with organism-centered views as well as by ecologists, developmental biologists, and clinicians, who understood the complexity and sensitivity of this process in ways that genetic technologists frequently did not.
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In this respect, Dawkins’s notion that genes are ‘‘self-replicators’’approaches incoherence. He might say that he means only that genes are self-replicators when all other things are equal. But when all other things are actually made equal by spelling out in detail the developmental process by which genes express traits, any self-replicative privilege assigned to genes disappears completely (Moss 2002).
We don’t suppose there’s much point in them reassuring the world that they are “not creationists or intelligent design advocates.” At this point, that hardly matters.
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23 Responses to Remember that Fate of Darwinism paper? Here’s what it says on Dawkins’ selfish gene …
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David J. Depew has some thoughts that might interest you”
“For the new creationists these epistemological follies are an exploitable resource. When Intelligent Design theorists argue that some traits are too complex to have evolved by natural selection they do not mean to deny that many other traits have. They merely want to highlight what they view as materialist hand-waving about the origin of life and early cellular metabolism (Behe 1996). They should, of course, be held responsible by their scientific peers for implausibly suggesting that the limitations of one variant of one research program within the larger Darwinian tradition, which is itself but one of several traditions in evolutionary natural history, is enough to threaten the general interconnectedness of the natural sciences by transcendental intervention without causing the whole fabric to fall apart. It is far more plausible to conclude that problems about the origin of life and cellular evolution will sooner or later be solved by new facts, theories, and paradigms without violating the presumptions of methodological naturalism.
Intelligent design advocates know full well, however, that for the primary audience to which they are playing the very point is to entertain the fantasy that one small chink in the armor of evolutionary science will send the whole framework of “materialist science” crashing down. Driven as it is personal-sphere anxieties about the meaning of life and, like the people of Dayton, Tennessee, by public-sphere resentments that local schools have been colonized by scientific elites, they would like nothing better than to see science reconceived simply as a large technological apparatus designed to make life better without entailing a rival theory of the world to the theocentrism they prefer. Would contemporary Intelligent Design theorists, I ask, be willing to take a stand against those who embrace their writings in this fideist spirit? I doubt it. They know what side their bread is buttered on.”
http://www.springerlink.com/co.....ltext.html
To me, this critiques are interesting. Sometimes meritorious, sometimes less so. I think they’ll result in a refinement of evolutionary theory, and maybe a new synthesis. But the walls aren’t tumbling down.
Interesting quote. Do you think BA77 will add it to his spam library?
I get the sense that not too many people take the selfish gene idea very seriously anymore. The idea is absurd on its face, essentially equivalent to suggesting that I have a selfish set of specifications for a screwdriver in my machine shop. As soon as we start asking some thoughtful questions about what it means for a sequence of nucleic acids to be selfish and how that selfishness is played out in the real world, the idea quickly collapses into what it really is — a word play.
The only reason the idea got any traction in the first place is because it fulfilled (so Dawkins thought) the role of a designer substitute, explaining the apparent purposive quality of nature not in terms of any top-down planning or conscious activity, but in terms of a bottoms-up materialistic process. The concept never was based on any well-developed scientific analysis; rather it met a philosophical need by fulfilling part of the materialistic creation story. The particles create the genes and then the genes create nature, so the thinking goes . . .
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BTW, question for the mods: Does the math verification problem really help in stopping spammers? I only ask because it seems it would be pretty easy for a program to answer the math problems, probably easier than a captcha (I’m not advocating a captcha, mind you, some of them are a real pain). If the math problem is working, great. Just curious.
I keep posting this, in the hope that someone here will listen and comment (or read Noble’s book, but the lecture essentially contains the content):
http://videolectures.net/eccs07_noble_psb/
Eric,
Have you read The Selfish Gene, and if so, was it recently? I ask because your comment betrays a serious lack of understanding of the concept.
You wrote:
If that set of specifications is really good at getting itself copied (for example, if the screwdriver produced by following those specs is wonderful, so that everyone wants one) then it is selfish in Dawkins’ sense. It ‘wants’ to get itself copied, and it succeeds. It’s a metaphor, but a good one.
The people troubled by it generally fall into four categories:
The first group includes people who are too literal in their interpretation of Dawkins, like Mary Midgley, who famously embarrassed herself by starting her review of The Selfish Gene thus: “Genes cannot be selfish or unselfish, any more than atoms can be jealous, elephants abstract or biscuits teleological.” I think you might be a member of this group, based on your screwdriver quote above.
The second group consists of people who dislike anything Darwinian. The selfish gene is certainly a Darwinian concept, so it attracts the ire of these folks. I think you might be a member of this group, as well, because you write:
You single out Dawkins in that quote, but I’m not sure why. It was Darwin, not Dawkins, who explained “the apparent purposive quality of nature not in terms of any top-down planning or conscious activity, but in terms of a bottoms-up materialistic process”. What distinguishes Dawkins’idea is his emphasis on the gene as the unit of selection. He doesn’t differ from Darwin in terms of explaining apparent design in biology.
Which leads me to the third category of objectors. These folks think that it’s misleading to refer to genes as ‘selfish’ when they are often quite ‘cooperative’. Dawkins is quite sympathetic to this view:
The fourth and last category includes people who don’t think the gene is necessarily the fundamental unit of selection. I suspect that Elizabeth might fall into this category, but I’m not sure. I haven’t watched the Denis Noble video that she recommends so highly in comment 3 (I will watch it, Elizabeth, I promise!
), but I did read a remark from a viewer who characterized it as a “critique of Richard Dawkins’ genecentric view of Biology.” So Denis Noble seems to fall into this category, whether or not Elizabeth also does.
You wrote:
This bears no resemblance to any ‘materialistic creation story’ that I’ve ever heard. Where did you get it?
Also, your charge that “The concept was never based on any well-developed scientific analysis” is simply false. In fact, the selfish gene concept is the only successful explanation, as far as I know, for mother-child genetic conflict, as in gestational diabetes.
I’m haven’t noticed much change in views, but perhaps that’s because I am not a biologist.
Personally, I never did like the selfish gene metaphor. I see it as placing too much emphasis on the gene, and not enough on the organism as a whole.
Curious. Did you not understand that it was a metaphor?
I have wondered about something else. Some of the CAPCHAs call out for entering a number as an English word, rather than in arabic numerals. I’m wondering what happens if you try that.
Thanks for the link. I am listening right now, though the playback just stalled. I do prefer prefer Noble’s way of looking at biology.
BA77′s encyclopaedic knowledge of the massive convergence of the evidence in favour of Intelligent Design (were it ever needed by the sound of mind) has really got you materialists rattled, hasn’t it?
After making a similar remark to yours, someone seemed to suggest how ‘cool’ it would be if, instead of providing links, BA77 copied out the linked articles, himself, presumably with his comments!
Not a word in rebuttal of any of the actual, devastating empirical findings for materialists such as himself.
Mankind, so much wiser than the atheist intellectual, has always called it, ‘trying to get blood out of a stone’, albeit in a necessarily metaphorical sense’; ‘necessarily’ because literally trying to get even the most rudimentary form of vegetable life out of inanimate matter is too fatuous for most people even to imagine.
With all of modern science at their disposal, they haven’t even managed to create a living single-cell organism, ab initio.
Dr(The Dogmatist)REC cites, (with Champ his ‘mindless’, for how can atheists even have a ‘mind’, atheistic lapdog concurring):
You guys think that your ‘not even wrong’ hypothesis has got ‘armor’???,,, Armor to even have a chink in in the first place??? PSSST DrREC and Champ, I’ll tell you a little secret, the Darwinian emperor does not even have any clothes on much less does he have armor on!!!
Atheistic neo-Darwinists claim that given enough time the fantastically improbable becomes probable, even inevitable. i.e. Evolution, no matter how improbable, becomes certain if you allow enough time according to their reasoning. Thus to counter such simplistic reasoning in the miraculous power of time to work miracles, here are a few notes to the contrary of what the neo-Darwinists take on blind faith in their almighty power of time;
Dr. Stephen Meyer comments at the end of the preceding video,,,
Further notes:
Not only do we not have enough time for Darwinian evolution, we don’t, as massive as it is, even have a big enough universe for Darwinian evolution:
That phrase puts a smile on my face.
Axel, I appreciate the intent of the compliment, but I truly do think it is unwarranted,,, but if you really do want to see someone who really does have an encyclopedic knowledge of the massive evidence against neo-Darwinism that is very impressive, and who does rattle atheists with that encyclopedic knowledge, I suggest you check out Dr. Cornelius Hunter’s website here:
Darwin’s Predictions
http://www.darwinspredictions.com/
footnote:
I did! In a shortened version of my previous comment, I think he misrepresents Dawkins’s thesis. Dawkins is looking at a reductionist view of evolution (by genotype change), and not necessarily a reductionist way to understand phenotypes (though clearly, phenotypes are built from genes + environment).
Only genes survive the organism. In building an organism, it is undoubted that there is not a gene ‘for’ this or that bit of it. But essentially, the ‘selfish gene’ lurks deep and unexpressed within the germ line copies. It ‘pulls levers’ via its effect on phenotype – the building and expression of a vast complex diploid soma, made from those very same genes acting in concert. But ultimately, it all reduces back to genotypes in the next generation, which are scattered to the four winds by recombination. The complexity of implementation of a gene’s action on phenotype does not preclude a reductionist viewpoint of evolution – each gene succeeds or fails in an environment that includes other genes, in a succession of bodies.
Suggesting that intelligent design is not, on present evidence, sufficient. Leaving a bunch of chemicals lying around for a few years is clearly not sufficient either, but I’m not sure why failure to intelligently design organisms should be regarded as evidence for Intelligent Design.
The issue is phenotype is not reducible to genotype.
IOW genes may influence development but they do not determine what will develop.
And unfortunately there isn’t any evidence that phenotypes are built from genes + environment.
Elizabeth: I want to thank you for your persistence. I watched this video and was richly rewarded. This should be required watching for anyone interested in biology!
You miss the point. The issue is that it is not phenotype that is evolving, but genotype. Phenotype changes because genotype does, not the other way around. Dawkins’s reductionism is an evolutionary reductionism, not a phenotypic one. But clearly, to increase in the gene pool by its own effects, a gene’s contribution to phenotype must be positive for the gene. Complex interaction in development, and lack of a 1:1 mapping from gene to organismal feature, does not invalidate that principle, and Noble seems to miss the evolutionary side of Dawkins’s metaphor (ie, most of Dawkins’s point).
The fact that elements of phenotype may come from places other than genotype – environment and your mysterious “Factor X” – does not change the fact that only genotype survives the organism. In Noble’s metaphor, the score survives after the last notes have died down in a particular performance.
Another of your little “there isn’t any evidence” homilies. I would submit that twins, asexual clones and severely inbred lines give strong evidence that genes do indeed build the organism, with undoubted input from environmental factors. I don’t know what “Factor X” you have in mind OTHER than G+E. Presumably your next statement will be “YOUR position has no evidence that there is not something more than G+E” (ie Science has to prove that something I made up does not exist). Care to be more explicit on what this mysterious developmental force vital may be?
Right, but if changes to the genotype cannot account for the changes required in the phenotype, then you don’t have anything.
Thanks for all your links B.A I know some people Whine about them but you provide very good information which is appreciated.
What does that demonstrate? DNA expression is controlled by proteins made by recent copies of that same DNA strand. Proteins made by distantly related pieces of DNA would not be expected to work by leaping across species, any more than you could successfully hybridise with a gorilla. What do you think should happen? A repofish? A fishertile? What actually comes out of this little thought experiment of yours, that so elegantly dismisses the role of genes in development?
Ah. How is ‘programming’ inherited over the long term, do you think? Via DNA, perhaps? Or does expression control just survive indefinitely independently of the genome?
Some evidence that genes are inherited, and not phenotype? Jeez Joe, where have you been?
We cannot take fish DNA, put it into an egg of a reptile and get a fish to develop.
It demonstrates that DNA does not determine the final form.
Yes and what does that have to do with my scenario?
Please support your false accusation that I have dismissed the rles of genes in development?
I have said that genes influence development- they do not determine it. And if DNA determined the final form then we would expect a fish to develop when fish DNA was put into a reptile’s egg.
Also DNA is not the program any more than the hard drive is the program.
If Venter’s experiment told us anything it is that DNA is not the software rather DNA is used to carry out the instructions.
And the evidence your position needs is that changes to genotypes can account for all the observed diversity in phenotypes.
So far all the evidence supports baraminology in that there is a definite limit to the phenotype that changes to the genotype can produce.