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The Selfish Gene, 50 years on — it’s time for an update (www.nature.com)

submitted 14 hours ago by technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/science@lemmy.world

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The idea at the core of the book, published in 1976, was thrillingly simple: that a living organism is just a gene’s way of making more organisms that can carry the gene down the generations.

Back then, The Selfish Gene seemed pretty harmless. Dawkins’s ideas tracked with mainstream sociobiology. It was a popular book that covered exactly the sort of ideas that my lecturers were already teaching.

Re-reading it now, with decades of scholarship in the history of biology under my belt, it seems less benign. The determinism baked into the “gene’s-eye view” in the book troubles me, as does the passivity of the organism in Dawkins’s telling — a “vehicle”, a mere “replicator”. The implication: that traits such as aggression are hard-wired into people. Fortunately, over the past couple of decades, new tools, fresh models and scholars in many disciplines have begun to embrace the complex reality of biology. Readers in search of an understanding of life on Earth today would do better to reach for books that take a broader view.

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[–] supersquirrel@lemmy.ca 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Fantastic article! Anyone got a way around paywall?

[–] eleijeep@piefed.social 6 points 11 hours ago

Yes it would be nice to actually find out what the titular "update" to the book the author is suggesting. We only get half way through the premise of their argument before the paywall cuts off the article.

[–] obbeel@kbin.earth 4 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Social darwinism is wrong. The human will show itself in all its beautiful complexity despite dumb simplified theories.

[–] eleijeep@piefed.social 12 points 11 hours ago

Social Darwinism is wrong, yes, but the Selfish Gene does not promote that theory and, if memory serves, it specifically calls out such theories as being wrong.

Perhaps you're misremembering what it's about on account of the title, which can be confusing. It's not about a gene that causes selfish behaviour. It's about the gene itself being a "selfish" entity in so far as the only thing that evolution cares about is that the gene promotes its own replication. It's an anthropomorphisation of the gene as a metaphor to understand the mechanism of evolution when viewed from a gene's-eye-view instead of the usual contextualisation of evolution around the individual animal.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 8 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The Nature article is about plain darwinian evolution though.

[+] obbeel@kbin.earth -8 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

The selfish gene is about applying a darwinian solution to humans. It's where the memetic experience comes in. The Nature reporter themselves talks about the "Replicator".

I've read it twice, the last time being 2021, but maybe I'll have to read it again to resist this shit mainstream Science is trying to feed the world.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Are we talking about the same book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene ? What on Earth is a "darwinian solution"?

[–] obbeel@kbin.earth -2 points 11 hours ago

I don't have to get past the preface to read things like:

" I should also give some space to Amotz Zahavi’s idea that altruistic donation might be a ‘Potlatch’ style of dominance signal: see how superior to you I am, I can afford to make a donation to you!"

But don't worry, I'll read the entire book and highlight what I think is most despicable. Is it just a Lemmy post? Yes, but this matter is important to me.

I'll think of it as if I were writing a scientific article of low reach.

Edit: Further down the PREFACE:

"Similar feeble thoughts have been strung together to produce the impression that Darwinian social theory is reactionary in its political implications. "

. He calls his theory a Darwinian social theory! This is a joke!

Moving on.

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 2 points 12 hours ago

Yeah the 70s were totally the pinnacle of science.

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 0 points 8 hours ago

Re-reading it now, with decades of scholarship in the history of biology under my belt...

I've read many an author that had decades of scholarship in the history of physics, but who clearly didn't know or understand physics (there are also big exceptions, of course). So I'll take this with a grain of salt... Or would have, if the article weren't paywalled. Apparently the author doesn't have enough free will to make a choice for open access.

[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 1 points 11 hours ago

what if its just psychopathy on a scale?

[+] basiclemmon98@lemmy.dbzer0.com -6 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Yea, I know that's right.

Most "genetic predispositions" to ANYTHING is just apoligism for behavior or an attempt to justify bigotry.

I'm sorry, but no actually, your choices and behavior is a result of your environment's effect on your psychology and how you respond to it. Period.

I am fucking sick of bioessentialism in any form.

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The nature vs nurture debate was settled long ago. It's always a mix. Humans have a lot of control over how they behave, but there are definitely inherent predispositions in everyone. They just don't group nicely along racial lines like bigots believe.

Some people have to struggle a lot harder to behave "correctly" (which depends on societal definitions). Beyond this, there are many different capabilities and preferences. Different people have different natural talents. A ton of that can be altered with learning and training, but some people will improve much faster and will reach higher goals.

The two (main) genders also have a lot of differences as a collective whole. None of that excuses prejudices and limiting people because of the group they are identified with. Any given person can be far outside the norm of their group in terms of what they can do well or do poorly. There are also a lot of perceived differences grounded in social norms that have nothing to do with biological reality. That doesn't mean there aren't others that are demonstrable but irrelevant to individual judgments.

The number of people who dwell in the fediverse and think that any two people can accomplish the same thing by putting in the same number of hours astonishes me. It's definitely influenced by their politics and how they want reality to be.

[–] basiclemmon98@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

"Nature" as you call it (though I prefer saying "genetics", more precise), only decides physical shit minorly and I will die on this hill. Noone gives psychology enough credit.