The selfless gene: Rethinking Dawkins's doctrine

[n2doc]

09 March 2009 by Bob Holmes

Evolutionary success is all about looking out for number one - or so most biologists would tell you. The genes that do the best job of passing themselves along to the next generation, whether by brute selfishness or canny cooperation, are the ones that flourish - a view most memorably championed by Richard Dawkins more than 30 years ago in his bestselling book The Selfish Gene.

This relentless focus on the gene may not tell the whole story, however. A small but growing coterie of evolutionary biologists argue that it leaves us blind to crucial evolutionary processes at higher scales - among groups, species and even whole ecosystem. If they are right, the popular view of evolution and the biological world needs a radical shake-up.

Almost everyone agrees that the gene's-eye view works perfectly well most of the time. "It's dominated the field, and dominated for a long time," says Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Indeed, many biologists think the selfish-gene concept can explain all the intricacies thrown up by evolution, and not just the obviously selfish ones.

more:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126981.800-the-selfless-gene-rethinking-dawkinss-doctrine.html

[ananda]

Society just doesn't follow the game theory/numbers model.

And there is no such thing as a
self-regulating free market or
enlightened self-interest.

See the documentary by Adam Curtis
called "The Trap." It shows how
policies based on the idea that
humans are basically selfish and
greedy always result in chaois or
FUBAR disaster. The show also
deals with the wrongheaded notion
of biologists trying to make
genes fit into game and numbers
theory.. and failing.

[hendo]

1. Interesting read

or at least the first page is. 2 more to go.

[Tikki]

2. This is truly what interests me most about being....

a human.
Thanks for posting the article.

It is amazing the way many minds will work
in search for the real answers to our existence here....


...In the real world of nature, group selection may not have such an easy time, because cooperative groups are vulnerable to takeover by cheaters. These selfish invaders - a fast-growing wheat plant, a neo-con.. for example - pay none of the costs of cooperation, yet reap all the benefits of being in a cooperative group.

"We found that you couldn't decompose the response we observed at the community level to a lower-level response. There was no single species that could do the job on its own"...


Tikki
bold of my own

[laconicsax]

3. Doctrine?