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A review by novabird
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
5.0
My interpretive and very condensed overview, notes et.al. of Dawkin’s most salient themes in “The Selfish Gene:” (my words are in italics)
“In the beginning was simplicity.”
Then came longevity, fecundity and copying-fidelity or the process of replication, which is the same as the language of genes that jump-started the long road to complexity; evolution.
“A gene is defined as any portion of chromosomal material, which potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection.”
Genes are the instructions of the instructions. Something similar to a decoder needed in order to be able to read the instructions.
“Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators to ensure their own continuation in the world? There would be plenty of time for improvement. What weird engines of self-preservation would the millennia bring forth? Four thousand million years on, what was to be the fate of the ancient replicators?
“They did not die out, for they are past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating loose in the sea; they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.”
“They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.”
First hint of epigenetics that Dawkins puts forward – “The environment of a gene consist largely of other genes, each of which is itself being selected for its ability to cooperate with its environment of other genes.”
And
“I speculate that we shall come to accept the more radical idea that each one of our genes is a symbiotic unit. “If this is true, we might as well regard ourselves as colonies of viruses.”
Slightly changed from Dawkins original, where I substituted humankind for man – “What shall it profit humankind if we shall gain the whole world, and lose our immortal genes?”
“The genes are the immortals, or rather, they are defined as genetic entities, which come close to deserving that title. We, the individual survival machines in the world, can expect to live a few more decades. But the genes in the world have an expectation of life which must be measured not in decades but in thousands and millions of years.”
Biological building blocks to a functioning intelligent brain - sensory capacity, pattern recognition, capacity for learning, simulation, making predictions = biological intelligent consciousness (not necessarily sentience).
“Whenever a system of communication evolves, there is always the danger that some will exploit the system for their own ends.”
“Language seems to ‘evolve,’ by non-genetic means, and at a rate which is orders of magnitude faster than genetic evolution.”
“Natural selection favors genes which control their survival machines in such a way that they make best use of their environment.” This is implied in Human game theory where an evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) is based on the idea of a rational theory of primal mind rooted in self-preservation works out the math of – odds and stats
“… the decision whether or not to fight should ideally be preceded by a complex, if unconscious, ‘cost-benefit’ calculation.”
The actual definition of ESS is; “a strategy which, if most members of a population adopt it, cannot be bettered by an alternative strategy.”
“But once an ESS is achieved it will stay: selection will penalize deviation from it.”
“I have a hunch that that we may come to look back on the invention of the ESS concept as one of the most important advances in evolutionary theory since Darwin.” Social organization and hidden group selectionism – the influence of memes? Therefore, the selfish gene concept is one that inherently preserves its genetics by adapting to its environment and social factors.
“We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation – meme.”
“When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.”
“An idea-meme might be defined as an entity which is capable of being transmitted from one brain to another.”
Memes demand: Distinct attention separate from other rival memes
Time effectiveness of transfer of idea
Translation of the language of imitation
Stepping back for a moment from the idea of the minds capacity for imitation at a meme level, there is a relatively new neurophysiological discovery of mirror neurons that have a designated brain structure and function.
“For more than three thousand million years, DNA has been the only replicator worth talking about in the world. But it does not necessarily hold these monopoly rights for all time. Whenever conditions arise in which a new kind of replicator can make copies of itself, the new replicators will tend to take over, and start a new kind of evolution of their own.”
“We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”
“Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.”
“If there is a human moral to be drawn, it is that we must teach our children altruism, for we cannot expect it to be part of their biological nature.”
“True warfare in which large rival armies fight to the death is known only in man and in social insects.”
My questions:
What is the purpose of self–terminating, late acting lethal, genes at all?
Can a meme function as part of the ESS? In other words what role does social upheaval play in upsetting the stasis of ESS? What about the reality of a “conspiracy of doves”?
What other type of evolution could have developed other than genes and memes?
Made me look up:
Nine-banded armadillos
Swallows fratricide/sibling disposal - RD Alexander parent winning strategy
Isogamy -
Kittiwakes -
Bruce effect pheromones –
Hymenoptera -
Aphids -
The Ik of Uganda – Colin Turnbull
I found the following to be Dawkins’ most outlandish statement:
“Individual humans who have more children than they are capable of rearing are probably too ignorant in most cases to be accused of conscious malevolent exploitation.”
A particular genetic trait that I found fascinating:
The Beau Geste Effect is the idea that animals pretend to be several animals at once in order to deceive their rivals into thinking that the numbers are too high to be supported by the environment and therefore they would have smaller clutch sizes. Where in reality there would then be smaller populations and greater resources.
The idea of god has great psychological appeal because of ‘terror management theory.’
Dawkins’ theory of life; the law that all life evolves by the differentiating survival of replication.
Superbly written Dawkins uses a 1. Tell them what you are going to say 2. Say it or write it in clear and lively language 3. Summarize; tell them what you have just said ease of reading style. It is slightly dated and loses its way in the follow-up sequel, "The Extended Phenotype."
“In the beginning was simplicity.”
Then came longevity, fecundity and copying-fidelity or the process of replication, which is the same as the language of genes that jump-started the long road to complexity; evolution.
“A gene is defined as any portion of chromosomal material, which potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection.”
Genes are the instructions of the instructions. Something similar to a decoder needed in order to be able to read the instructions.
“Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators to ensure their own continuation in the world? There would be plenty of time for improvement. What weird engines of self-preservation would the millennia bring forth? Four thousand million years on, what was to be the fate of the ancient replicators?
“They did not die out, for they are past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating loose in the sea; they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.”
“They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.”
First hint of epigenetics that Dawkins puts forward – “The environment of a gene consist largely of other genes, each of which is itself being selected for its ability to cooperate with its environment of other genes.”
And
“I speculate that we shall come to accept the more radical idea that each one of our genes is a symbiotic unit. “If this is true, we might as well regard ourselves as colonies of viruses.”
Slightly changed from Dawkins original, where I substituted humankind for man – “What shall it profit humankind if we shall gain the whole world, and lose our immortal genes?”
“The genes are the immortals, or rather, they are defined as genetic entities, which come close to deserving that title. We, the individual survival machines in the world, can expect to live a few more decades. But the genes in the world have an expectation of life which must be measured not in decades but in thousands and millions of years.”
Biological building blocks to a functioning intelligent brain - sensory capacity, pattern recognition, capacity for learning, simulation, making predictions = biological intelligent consciousness (not necessarily sentience).
“Whenever a system of communication evolves, there is always the danger that some will exploit the system for their own ends.”
“Language seems to ‘evolve,’ by non-genetic means, and at a rate which is orders of magnitude faster than genetic evolution.”
“Natural selection favors genes which control their survival machines in such a way that they make best use of their environment.” This is implied in Human game theory where an evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) is based on the idea of a rational theory of primal mind rooted in self-preservation works out the math of – odds and stats
“… the decision whether or not to fight should ideally be preceded by a complex, if unconscious, ‘cost-benefit’ calculation.”
The actual definition of ESS is; “a strategy which, if most members of a population adopt it, cannot be bettered by an alternative strategy.”
“But once an ESS is achieved it will stay: selection will penalize deviation from it.”
“I have a hunch that that we may come to look back on the invention of the ESS concept as one of the most important advances in evolutionary theory since Darwin.” Social organization and hidden group selectionism – the influence of memes? Therefore, the selfish gene concept is one that inherently preserves its genetics by adapting to its environment and social factors.
“We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation – meme.”
“When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.”
“An idea-meme might be defined as an entity which is capable of being transmitted from one brain to another.”
Memes demand: Distinct attention separate from other rival memes
Time effectiveness of transfer of idea
Translation of the language of imitation
Stepping back for a moment from the idea of the minds capacity for imitation at a meme level, there is a relatively new neurophysiological discovery of mirror neurons that have a designated brain structure and function.
“For more than three thousand million years, DNA has been the only replicator worth talking about in the world. But it does not necessarily hold these monopoly rights for all time. Whenever conditions arise in which a new kind of replicator can make copies of itself, the new replicators will tend to take over, and start a new kind of evolution of their own.”
“We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”
“Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.”
“If there is a human moral to be drawn, it is that we must teach our children altruism, for we cannot expect it to be part of their biological nature.”
“True warfare in which large rival armies fight to the death is known only in man and in social insects.”
My questions:
What is the purpose of self–terminating, late acting lethal, genes at all?
Can a meme function as part of the ESS? In other words what role does social upheaval play in upsetting the stasis of ESS? What about the reality of a “conspiracy of doves”?
What other type of evolution could have developed other than genes and memes?
Made me look up:
Nine-banded armadillos
Swallows fratricide/sibling disposal - RD Alexander parent winning strategy
Isogamy -
Kittiwakes -
Bruce effect pheromones –
Hymenoptera -
Aphids -
The Ik of Uganda – Colin Turnbull
I found the following to be Dawkins’ most outlandish statement:
“Individual humans who have more children than they are capable of rearing are probably too ignorant in most cases to be accused of conscious malevolent exploitation.”
A particular genetic trait that I found fascinating:
The Beau Geste Effect is the idea that animals pretend to be several animals at once in order to deceive their rivals into thinking that the numbers are too high to be supported by the environment and therefore they would have smaller clutch sizes. Where in reality there would then be smaller populations and greater resources.
The idea of god has great psychological appeal because of ‘terror management theory.’
Dawkins’ theory of life; the law that all life evolves by the differentiating survival of replication.
Superbly written Dawkins uses a 1. Tell them what you are going to say 2. Say it or write it in clear and lively language 3. Summarize; tell them what you have just said ease of reading style. It is slightly dated and loses its way in the follow-up sequel, "The Extended Phenotype."