Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever.
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press,
USA; 30th Anniversary edition, 2006), 35.
Ask yourself if that's adequate go ground human hope, human worth, human rights.
A quick note, and apologies for the rush job:
ReplyDeleteDawkins is so short-sighted. What about the infertile couple? Their genes don't live forever. Their genes aren't part of the gene pool.
What about the chic modern couple who chooses not to have children? Or who aborts their babies? Their genes don't make it into the gene pool to be passed on to future generations.
Perhaps this isn't fair since Dawkins is referring to the human species as a whole. Yet at the species level, humans are only one asteroid away from extinction. Jurassic Park aside, dinosaur genes aren't able to be reproduced. (At best, assuming say birds are descendents of dinosaurs, geneticists might be able to manipulate bird embryos to recreate the terrible lizard.)
Besides, if humans continue to evolve, then what does it even mean to say our genes are passed on and "live forever"? Will homo futurus be able to reproduce with homo sapiens and produce fertile offspring? If not, then homo futurus will be a distinct species. Or what if the entire homo genus dies out like Australopithecus did in order to make way for a new genus of hominids let alone something else besides hominids? This new genus might share little if any of its genetic makeup with homo sapiens. If this occurs, then in what sense will our genes even continue to exist?
Given evolution it's possible the gap between homo sapiens and future species on this planet could be as wide as bacteria to humans today.
But perhaps Dawkins is referring to genes in general. In that case...well..."geological time"? And "forever"? Dawkins, your evolutionary theory is too small! All species will die with the death of the universe. Nothing is forever.
Maybe he can punt to the multiverse. But if the multiverse isn't "forever" then genes in alternate universes within the multiverse likewise could not be "forever."
rockingwithhawking, I think you should have actually read the book before commenting in such an ill informed manner. You would have only needed to read a few paragraphs after the one quoted by Steve to have your issues answered.
ReplyDeleteHere are a couple small quotes for you from the paragraphs following the one cited. They are actually on the same page of the book.
"What I am doing is emphasizing the potential new-immortality of a gene..."
"The gene is a long-lived replicator, existing in the form of many duplicate copies. It is not infinitely long-lived."
Here is the Google books link if you are interested : http://books.google.com/books?id=0ICKantUfvoC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false
JC said:
Delete"rockingwithhawking, I think you should have actually read the book before commenting in such an ill informed manner. You would have only needed to read a few paragraphs after the one quoted by Steve to have your issues answered. Here are a couple small quotes for you from the paragraphs following the one cited. They are actually on the same page of the book."
Actually, what's ill informed (not to mention funny) is your response. In fact, if fair your quotations demonstrate Dawkins' own ambiguity if not equivocation. On the one hand, Dawkins speaks of a gene's "potential new-immortality." But on the other hand Dawkins describes the gene as "a long-lived replicator" and states a gene "is not infinitely long-lived." In what sense can something that's "long-lived" but not "infinitely long-lived" have the "potential" for "immortality"? The Greenland shark is long-lived but not infinitely long-lived. Does it (or its genes) have the potential for immortality? What about a creature like the immortal jellyfish? And so on and so forth.
(Apparently this isn't the first time Dawkins appears to have difficulty making up his own mind.)
But as I've already mentioned perhaps you're not quoting Dawkins fairly. At a minimum you'd have to elaborate on what Dawkins meant. However, if you're able to redeem Dawkins by admitting this, then all the worse for you, since you do so at the cost of making yourself look more ill informed (or worse) than you already are as you're unable to fairly quote him.
Anyway, better luck next time!
You still appear to not have actually read the chapter. I did provide a link for you in case you don’t own the book. If you want to quibble about my quotes, that’s fine but I do not intend on quoting the whole chapter for you. That is what the link was for.
DeleteNotice, your first comment was taking issue with Dawkins use of the phrase “genes are forever”. If we were to take that literally as you are doing then sure, it’s probably not true however it’s obvious that it was not meant to be literal but rather somewhat poetic like the phrase “diamonds are forever”. If you had read the chapter you should have picked up on this as I think he explains it very well.
“On the one hand, Dawkins speaks of a gene's "potential new-immortality." But on the other hand Dawkins describes the gene as "a long-lived replicator" and states a gene "is not infinitely long-lived." In what sense can something that's "long-lived" but not "infinitely long-lived" have the "potential" for "immortality"?”
Again you are missing the point Dawkins is trying to convey. I only quoted what I did because it stands against your first issue with “genes are forever”. Now you are trying to create a contradiction where there is none. When Dawkins speaks of a gene’s potential immortality he is speaking of its ability to live on in the form of copies of its self. He is not referring to a specific instance of a gene as you seem to be implying. He clearly states that genes can and do die out but they have the potential of immortality in the form of copies of themselves.
“But as I've already mentioned perhaps you're not quoting Dawkins fairly. At a minimum you'd have to elaborate on what Dawkins meant. However, if you're able to redeem Dawkins by admitting this, then all the worse for you, since you do so at the cost of making yourself look more ill informed (or worse) than you already are as you're unable to fairly quote him.”
There is no need to elaborate on what Dawkins meant. It’s quite clear by reading what he wrote. I think I quoted him just fine in rebuttal to your issue with “genes are forever” and I provided a reference to back it up in case the quotes were not enough for you. This seems quite reasonable to me.
@JC
DeleteOf course, this assumes it's incumbent on me to read Dawkins' chapter. But if it's true you "quoted him just fine in rebuttal to your issue with 'genes are forever'" then what's quoted should suffice.
More importantly, the excerpt from Dawkins about "genes are forever" is part and parcel of his selfish gene meme, and Dawkins' selfish gene meme is meant both literally, or better yet technically, as well as metaphorically. In fact, Dawkins himself claims as much in his book.
Yet that's precisely what's wrong with Dawkins here. What does Dawkins even mean by a phrase like "genes are forever" as well as a host of others in his book? What does Dawkins mean when he subscribes to physicalism and uses the technical jargon of genes, chromosomes, crossing-over, replication, and the like, but at the same time all but personifies the gene? His language is vague or ambiguous; it might as well not mean anything. Perhaps he's confused.
What's more, Dawkins makes no bones in his book about the fact that he has attempted to craft an all-encompassing worldview or philosophy (or perhaps one could even say religion or mythology) to explain the evolutionary tree and the complexity of life based on neo-Darwinism. We get a taste of this in this very excerpt. But the problem is this adds difficulties inasmuch as Dawkins needs far firmer footing in the scientific technicalities before he can even get off the ground with such a soaring vision of life, the universe, and everything. He lets his metaphors do the hard work of his science, which in turn is itself a mishmash of accuracies and inaccuracies, good argumentation and bad argumentation, objectivity and prejudice.
But on what basis does Dawkins assume "genes are forever" in this great chain of being presumably originating from the first genetic material of the first self-replicating organism all the way down to modern species as well as beyond? Why should we assume the selfish gene is at bottom the commonality which pervades all life and which persists forever? After all, it's quite possible to have molecules without these same molecules becoming self-replicating. So why isn't what's principal the selfish "force" working in tandem with the selfish gene? Or is it selfish genes all the way down?
In any case, what I've said may sound "ill informed" to you, but that's in large measure because what I've said is pegged on Dawkins' own "ill informed" articulation, fuzzy terminology, poorly conceived memetics, ambitious but overextended vision, etc. If I push his metaphorical language into what appears to be slavish literality, maybe it's in part because I'm seeking to discipline and ground his airy fairy castles.
By the way, a poet who exclaims "diamonds are forever" doesn't usually have an entire belief system underlying his language as Dawkins does with the selfish gene meme in the context of neo-Darwinian theory and atheism. A poet most likely just means diamonds last a long time. It's not as if the poet is also arguing all life fundamentally consists of diamonds, that these diamonds use organisms including human beings to continue replicating and discard us once they've passed on their lattices, that diamonds are more valuable than any particular human being, that human beings are just hollow shells for the all-important diamond nugget inside, but that someday humans can harness and control these selfish diamonds, that other life forms in the far reaches of the universe are based on diamonds too, and so on and so forth.