The selfish gene theory has absolutely nothing to do with one gene "achieving complex behavior" (whatever that actually means. Just one nucleic acid substitution in one gene can radically alter complex behavior of some systems, even of whole organisms). You have completely misunderstood Dawkins, if indeed you have actually read him. There is no evidence here that you have, aside from your assertion. You claim to disagree with him, yet most of your assertions here are straight from his viewpoint (the Pima Indian example is commonly employed by those proposing the "reductionist" view you claim to reject, for instance). That is not clear. If you mean that the larger or more inclusive scale patterns cannot exist without some kind of physical substrate to employ in their creation and development, and are in some ways constrained as well as enabled by that substrate, then I agree. If you mean that the substrate completely fixes the patterns involved, that the patterns hove no independent existence at all, then I think you are overlooking some important aspects of reality - physical and otherwise.
That nucleic acid substitution is not initiated or even executed by the gene. I don't think so. He proposes a gene centered theory of evolution [and evolutionary behavior], but I believe that overlooks the fact that genes are just one cog in the overall machinery. If you consider the entire breadth and width of living organisms, its clear that there is a holistic system of organisation with a flexibility to adapt to almost any circumstance. Actually you said "that gene" So are memes Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
This like having the internal combustion engine explained to you, and you getting caught up with the steering mechanism. You're totally missing the importance of the hereditary material that is ultimately responsible for everything that occurs in an organism.
The hereditary material by itself is meaningless. In a different environment it means nothing. You need the whole package for an effect to be meaningful.
So? It's the complex behavior we were talking about, as "achieved" by one gene. Apparently complex behavior of an entire organism is occasionally "achieved" by one gene - even one nucleic acid in one gene. The point is, it doesn't matter. Dawkins' theories do not require any such thing, and your claim that they do is in error. And you believe wrongly. As I said, you do not appear to have read anything he wrote, He is describing the nature of the cog - the role of the gene in all that machinery. It is not "just one cog", but the central cog of the physical evolution of living bengs - that is something he does not overlook, but considers at lengh. All meaning of anything derives from context. Nothing means anything in a different environment. Take all this non-gene stuff you claim is so important, put it in the middle ot the sun, and see what it means. Take the hereditary material, put it in its normal environment, and you have the central basis of the evolution of life as we know it today. It is what evolves, physically.
Techne and iceaura, Do we agree that all emotions, feelings, intuitions, ideas, fears, likes and dislikes and all memories are produced by atoms (including their subatomic elements)? In short: everything we experience can be reduced to a purely physical phenomena. Agreed? NOTE: I didn't say that we completely understand the nature of physical reality only that everything we experience is a product of it. There is no supernatural. Agreed?
I was wondering this morning, over coffee. Are the ants that sacrifices themselves haploid? If so, wouldn't their genetic relatedness be 100% with the queen? I can't remember how it works again....?
No, we don't. At least I don't. I see patterns on substrates, and I do not credit the substrates with having "produced" them. It's a matter of terminology, or semantics - the language of "produced" seems misleading to me: it implies cause and effect, so that one (for example) describes GPS systems as being caused by properties of the subatomic particles that compose iron atoms. The very pattern we describe as "cause and effect" only inhabits levels of pattern far "above" (or "outside", or "inclusive of") the subatomic. That requires no reduction - it already is physical phenomena. Best not to underestimate physical phenomena, would be the qualification.
And thats where I disagree with him. I do not think a gene adapts to its environment, if that were true none of us would be around today, since we are not living in a primordial ooze. I think there are a great many superfluous additions environmental influences which provide genes with the flexibility to be able to survive in more than one environment. Of course, no one gene can have ALL the flexibility to survive in ANY environment. I think ignoring the impact of environment on the diversity of the gene is a big mistake.
Primordial ooze was never a gene's environment, evolution is not solely a matter of adaptation to an environment, and your logic is backwards: the fact that we are not living in former environments but nevertheless carry well-adapted genetics is evidence in favor of the ability of genes to adapt, not opposed. That's gibberish, as far as I can tell. What "environment" and "diversity" are you talking about?
Hence its admirably exact fit with Darwinian theory, which proscribes the evolutionary fixation of adaptations.
SAM: Do you believe that left or right-handedness is genetically determined? Or at least, that handedness is influenced by genes? If you do, then you should also agree to the following proposition: For the sake of argument, let us assume that being right-handed increases a human being's chance of surviving to reproductive age. Then, simple natural selection would suggest that whatever genes go into determining right-handedness will tend to become dominant in the human population over time. How does this look from the perspective of the genes themselves? Answer: it looks like those "right-handed" genes are making humans who have a better chance of passing on right-handed genes to the next generation, thus increasing the survival chances of those genes themselves. These genes act in a "selfish" manner in so far as their actions tend to result in a decrease in their "competitor" genes - the "left-handed" genes - while promoting themselves. What do you find controversial about this? Note that nobody is ascribing conscious "motivations" to bits of DNA. What Dawkins is saying is that the effect of evolution is that genes appear "selfish". Finally, note again that these are not genes for selfishness, or anything like that. A right-handedness gene doesn't make a "selfish" human being.
Do you believe that it is possible for a left handed person to consciously change their handedness [I happen to be one of them, btw, I was born left handed but am now dominantly right handed, have no idea why I decided to become right handed Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!] I consider the entire concept of genes "increasing their chances of survival" to be a false paradigm.
Darwinian theory forbids the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Genes to not acquire characteristics, and are the basis - the central cog - in the mechanism of inheritance. That is a good fit.
Yeah, but genes do not adapt, they merely process. Which is why its no surprise that they cannot inherit anything. The "adaptation" is poorly defined at the level of the gene and is better understood at the level of the system. Environmental influences produce random changes through drift and mutations and these increase the probability of survival of the organism within the particular system. The gene which is not able to survive dies, it does not get altered. Thats my opinion, anyway.
