To Hell with my Genes!

Meme Wars

Sqwark:I have yet to read Rainbows (it's on order) but he certainly employs this type of double back flip liberally in all his other work, reassuring us at the end of River Out of Eden that we can overcome the tyranny of our genes, yet without saying how this might be possible when their pre-eminence is his entire thesis.

Meme Wars: Dawkins has suggested several times in his writings that even though genes have created the environment for the appearance of a new replicator called "memes" or social units of replication, these new replicators seem to be setting themselves free of genes.

An example is celebate priests. It is true that genes are not being passed on by the priest, but what the priest can do that others cannot due to their commitment to spouse and children, is pass on the religious memes into many adult and children brains. In this sense, memes have co-opted genes for its own self replication. It is through the meme-complex called self that we can set ourselves free of genes.

sqwark: NeoDarwinism has dispensed with the organism in favour of the gene, and yet this gene-centricism itself is not treated with proper scientific qualification, so hamstrung is the ideology by its own dogma.

The current research from molecular biology increasingly suggests that Lamarckian processes are at work as a direct response of the organism to its environment, and that neither organisms nor evolution are just a random collection of bits and bytes made intelligible by an all-seeing natural selection (which after all is an abstract term to describe something which has worked - it doesn't actually 'explain' anything).

Meme Wars: Genes in multi-celled organisms must pass through the bottleneck of meiosis, where they are only passed on through sexual recombination. These genes are unalterable at conception, meaning the environment of the individual organism cannot influence or alter the code of its offspring. This is why selection does not operate out of the organism or in group selection. Their program has already been predetermined at conception. Females are already born with about 40,000 immature eggs through meiosis and are not altered through the life of the female. Another surprising fact is that virtually all multi-celled sexual creatures are born with about 40,000 eggs, irrespective of the fact that larger organisms such as man and elephant may ovulate only about 200 to 300 of these eggs in their lifetime. This argues against Creationism or intelligent design and argues for the relatedness of all species that employs sex as a means of propagation.

Memes on the other hand do not depend on Mieosis or sex to spread itself to the next generation. Just as viruses also do not depend on sex for replication. Memes spread by cultural imitation, not sex. Viruses spread by social contact of some kind. On the other hand, the Bacteria mitochondria in each of our cells does not participate in sexual mixing of genes. Yet it is also dependent on the bottleneck of sexual transmission as a channel for replication beyond the organism.

There is no credible scientific evidence for the manipulation of genes in the sex cells by the organism, therefore, genes are the prime element involved in evolution, not the individual or groups of individuals. It is between genes and environment.

Meme Wars
montyquest@aol.com

PeterDF

There seem to be two distinct areas of debate addressed in this thread. First is the alleged undermining of a moral or ethical framework by the Selfish Gene idea. The second is the perennial problem of free will verses genetic determinism.

For what it’s worth let me chip in with my views. I’ll keep this “bite sized” and only deal with the first argument here.

As I understand it most of us on this forum would not accept the premise that moral values were in some way handed out like sweets, by some omnipotent sweetshop owner. (if you live on the left-hand side of the map substitute candy for sweet). Therefore it follows that morality must have emerged as a kind of by-product of the emergence of the human mind or because we are innately predisposed to understand the concept of morality. As monkeys and apes have codes and conventions to enable to manage their social interactions it seems that what humans have is a natural outgrowth of these kinds of behaviours. This implies that the latter reason seems most likely to be the right one. The selfish gene idea helps us to understand why these behaviours have emerged. As a result of Dawkin’s presentation of this idea (which strictly speaking was developed by the great evolutionary biologist William Hamilton) we are better informed, and better able to see how those forces that brought our species into existence act.

Dualism currently seems to be out of fashion – perhaps understandably when one considers Descartes version of it - but perhaps there is need for a different kind of dualistic approach to resolve the problem under discussion. I have developed a metaphor for defining the dualistic system I have in mind, which I have called the “Humanity Horizon”. I believe that Humanity Horizon dualism is appropriate because there are two entirely distinct agendas: as human beings our principle concern is that we achieve health, wealth and happiness (Our US friends might want to insert the word liberty here too). From the perspective of the genes the agenda is completely different ---- all that is important is the simple requirement of propagation. (Although I accept that their means of achieving propagation is often far from simple.)

We can think of the soap opera of human interaction as taking place above the humanity horizon. Up here we can think of it as our world, in which we can define our own moral imperatives, make our own laws, and if we chose we can defy the gene's agenda, (by using contraception for example) leaving the cold, calculating mechanistic world of the Selfish Gene/Blind Watchmaker below the horizon.

What the underworld below the horizon has to do with ethics and morality is illustrated best when one considers the most basic tenet of the human moral agenda: the right to life. It is clear that in nature - and therefore in the world below the humanity horizon - there is no right to life.

I think that one can safely draw the conclusion that we can draw no moral imperatives from below the humanity horizon. We acquire our importance as sentient beings by means of our emotional connection between each other, our subjective response to the world in which we find ourselves, and through whatever principles we individually hold to be true. None of this has anything to do with the entirely distinct agenda of selfish genery. Because the world below the horizon operates as a purely mechanistic system we could no more derive moral guidance from it than one could derive moral imperatives from the workings of a car engine.

However it should be clear that if we are to understand the origin of humanity, what makes us what we are and more importantly how our genetic conditioning makes us behave, especially when it makes us behave inappropriately, we must seek answers below the humanity horizon. I see evolutionary psychology as the science of investigating the world below the horizon.

This is an incredible and extraordinary time to be alive! For the first time in the long history of humankind we can begin to understand the forces that shaped us into the species we are. I think one might consider “The Selfish Gene”. “The Blind Watchmaker” and “The Extended Phenotype as a trilogy of books which – uniquely – define the workings of the world below the humanity horizon. I think of them as being of incalculable importance to our understanding of our place in the Universe. “River out of Eden” and “Climbing Mount Improbable” clarify and expand the concept. Others might disagree but I see “Unweaving the Rainbow” as being different in that it deals with how we find beauty, wonder and meaning in our world above the humanity horizon without lapsing into false mysticism, theism and baseless spiritualism. Dawkin's latest 'A Devils Chaplain' is more eclectic and a somewhat different species of book.

The important thing to realise is that we can learn much from delving below the humanity horizon in our quest to understand what it means to be human. There may be ways in which we might have to redefine our view of what it is to be a human. But what it can never do is devalue our humanity because that exists where it always was: up here above the horizon. Are we different beings to what we were before before Dawkins wrote his books? Are we less than we were ? No - on both counts.

It may be that we will learn that some aspects of our behaviour are inappropriate in the very different context of the world we live in today as compared to the one we evolved to fit. But we humans - at least in terms of genealogical time - are what we are; what we always were; and what we always will be. The proposition of the selfish gene idea can not change what we are; it can only enrich and deepen our understanding of what it means to be us.


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