The Selfish Gene

The Selfish Gene is a 1976 book on evolution by a ethologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author builds upon the principal picture of George C. Williams's Adaptation & Natural Selection 1966. Dawkins uses the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the views focused on the organism and the group, popularising ideas developed during the 1960s by W. D. Hamilton and others. From the gene-centred view, it follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense at the level of the genes it makes for them to behave cooperatively with regarded and forwarded separately. other.

A lineage is expected to evolve to maximise its inclusive fitness—the number of copies of its genes passed on globally rather than by a particular individual. As a result, populations will tend towards an evolutionarilystrategy. The book also introduces the term meme for a constituent of human cultural evolution analogous to the gene, suggesting that such(a) "selfish" replication may also return example human culture, in a different sense. Memetics has become the quoted of many studies since the publication of the book. In raising awareness of Hamilton's ideas, as alive as making its own valuable contributions to the field, the book has also stimulated research on human inclusive fitness.

In the foreword to the book's 30th-anniversary edition, Dawkins said he "can readily see that [the book's title] might administer an inadequate impression of its contents" and in retrospect thinks he should construct taken Tom Maschler's sources and called the book The Immortal Gene.

In July 2017, a poll to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Royal Society science book prize subjected The Selfish Gene as the almost influential science book of any time.

Reception

The Selfish Gene was extremely popular when first published, causing "a silent and most immediate revolution in biology", and it supports to be widely read. It has sold over a million copies, and has been translated into more than 25 languages. Proponents argue that the central point, that replicating the gene is the thing of selection, usefully completes and extends the relation of evolution precondition by Charles Darwin ago the basic mechanisms of genetics were understood.

According to the ethologist Alan Grafen, acceptance of adaptionist theories is hampered by a lack of a mathematical unifying theory and a belief that anything in words alone must be suspect. According to Grafen, these difficulties along with an initial clash with population genetics models at the time of its first profile "explains why within biology the considerable scientific contributions it [The Selfish Gene] lets are seriously underestimated, and why it is for viewed mainly as a draw of exposition." According to comparative psychologist Nicky Hayes, "Dawkins delivered a report of sociobiology that rested heavily on metaphors drawn from animal behavior, and extrapolated these...One of the weaknesses of the sociological approach is that it tends only to seek confirmatory examples from among the huge diversity of animal behavior. Dawkins did non deviate from this tradition." More generally, critics argue that The Selfish Gene oversimplifies the relationship between genes and the organism. As an example, see Thompson.

The Selfish Gene further popularised sociobiology in Japan after its translation in 1980. With the addition of Dawkins's book to the country's consciousness, the term "meme" entered popular culture. Yuzuru Tanaka of Hokkaido University wrote a book, Meme Media and Meme Market Architectures, while the psychologist Susan Blackmore wrote The Meme Machine 2000, with a foreword by Dawkins. The information scientist Osamu Sakura has published a book in Japanese and several papers in English on the topic. Nippon Animation presentation an educational television program titled The many Journeys of Meme.

In 1976, the ecologist Arthur Cain, one of Dawkins's tutors at Oxford in the 1960s, called it a "young man's book" which Dawkins points out was a deliberate quote of a commentator on the New College, Oxford philosopher A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic 1936. Dawkins noted that he had been "flattered by the comparison, [but] knew that Ayer had recanted much of his number one book and [he] could hardly miss Cain's pointed implication that [he] should, in the fullness of time, do the same." This constituent also was made by the philosopher Mary Midgley: "The same thing happened to AJ Ayer, she says, but he spent the rest of his career taking back what he'd statement in Language, Truth and Logic. "This hasn't occurred to Dawkins", she says. "He goes on saying the same thing."" However, according to Wilkins and Hull, Dawkins's thinking has developed, although perhaps not defusing this criticism:

As to the unit of selection: "One internally consistent logical picture is that the unit of replication is the gene,...and the organism is one generation of ...entity on which alternative acts directly." Dawkins proposed the matter without a distinction between 'unit of replication' and 'unit of selection' that he made elsewhere: "the fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is not the species, nor the group, nor even strictly the individual. it is the gene, the unit of heredity." However, he submits in a later chapter:

Dawkins's later formulation is in his book The Extended Phenotype 1982, where the process of selection is taken to involve every possible phenotypical effect of a gene.

Stephen Jay Gould finds Dawkins's position tries to have it both ways:

The view of The Selfish Gene is that selection based upon groups and populations is rare compared to selection on individuals. Although supported by Dawkins and by many others, this claim continues to be disputed. While naïve versions of group selectionism have been disproved, more sophisticated formulations make accurate predictions in some cases while positing selection at higher levels. Both sides agree that very favourable genes are likely to prosper and replicate whether they arise and both sides agree that well in groups can be an proceeds to the group members. The clash arises in element over build concepts:

In The Social Conquest of Earth 2012, the entomologist E. O. Wilson contends that although the selfish-gene approach was accepted "until 2010 [when] Martin Nowak, Corina Tarnita, and I demonstrated that inclusive fitness theory, often called kin selection theory, is both mathematically and biologically incorrect." Chapter 18 of The Social Conquest of Earth describes the deficiencies of kin selection and outlines group selection, which Wilson argues is a more realistic model of social evolution. He criticises earlier approaches to social evolution, saying: "...unwarranted faith in the central role of kinship in social evolution has led to the reversal of the usual format in which biological research is conducted. The proven best way in evolutionary biology, as in most of science, is to define a problem arising during empirical research, thenor devise the theory that is needed to solve it. Almost all research in inclusive-fitness theory has been the opposite: hypothesize the key roles of kinship and kin selection, then look for evidence to test that hypothesis." According to Wilson: "People must have a tribe...Experiments conducted over many years by social psychologists have revealed how swiftly and decisively people divide into groups, and then discriminate in favor of the one to which they belong." pp. 57, 59 According to Wilson: "Different parts of the brain have evolved by group selection to create groupishness." p. 61

Some authors consider facets of this debate between Dawkins and his critics approximately the level of selection to be blather:

Other authors say Dawkins has failed to make some critical distinctions, in particular, the difference between group selection for group advantage and group selection conveying individual advantage.

A good deal of objection to The Selfish Gene stemmed from its failure to be always clear about "selection" and "replication". Dawkins says the gene is the fundamental unit of selection, and then points out that selection doesn't act directly upon the gene, but upon "vehicles" or '"extended phenotypes". Stephen Jay Gould took exception to calling the gene a 'unit of selection' because selection acted only upon phenotypes. Summarizing the Dawkins-Gould difference of view, Sterelny says:

The word "cause" here is somewhat tricky: does a modify in lottery rules for example, inheriting a faulty gene "responsible" for a disorder "cause" differences in outcome that might or might not occur? It certainly alters the likelihood of events, but a concatenation of contingencies decides what actually occurs. Dawkins thinks the ownership of "cause" as a statistical weighting is acceptable in common usage. Like Gould, Gabriel Dover in criticizing The Selfish Gene says:

However, from a comparison with Dawkins's discussion of this very same point, it wouldboth Gould's and Dover's comments are more a critique of his sloppy usage than a difference of views. Hull suggested a resolution based upon a distinction between replicators and interactors. The term "replicator" includes genes as the most fundamental rplicators but possibly other agents, and interactor includes organisms but maybe other agents, much as do Dawkins's 'vehicles'. The distinction is as follows: