SAM:
Many people in the past (where I live anyway) were forced to write with their right hand, for example, even though their natural inclination was to use their left hand. So, they learned to write with their right hand. But that doesn't stop the same people from preferentially using their left hand for other tasks, such as lifting and grasping.
Other people are ambidextrous, and perhaps being forced to use one hand may bias such a person so that in practice they tend to use one hand over the other. They may even swap over their preferential hand during their lifetime.
It doesn't really effect anything I've said above, though. Handedness was only an example.
Fine, but it seems to me that you're knocking down a straw man argument rather than addressing anything Dawkins actually argues in The Selfish Gene.
Certainly, he goes to great lengths to carefully disabuse his readers of any notion that he is arguing that genes "want" to do things in any conscious way, or that they act as conscious agents.
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]
Many people in the past (where I live anyway) were forced to write with their right hand, for example, even though their natural inclination was to use their left hand. So, they learned to write with their right hand. But that doesn't stop the same people from preferentially using their left hand for other tasks, such as lifting and grasping.
Other people are ambidextrous, and perhaps being forced to use one hand may bias such a person so that in practice they tend to use one hand over the other. They may even swap over their preferential hand during their lifetime.
It doesn't really effect anything I've said above, though. Handedness was only an example.
I consider the entire concept of genes "increasing their chances of survival" to be a false paradigm.
Fine, but it seems to me that you're knocking down a straw man argument rather than addressing anything Dawkins actually argues in The Selfish Gene.
Certainly, he goes to great lengths to carefully disabuse his readers of any notion that he is arguing that genes "want" to do things in any conscious way, or that they act as conscious agents.