So how many of our decisions are based upon our gene's survival skills and when can we override our genes? This may be something that is coming up in another chapter but this chapter is making me think of that. Can other animals override their genes? Is this a debate that goes on among scientists?

Here is an interesting article about a conference on feminism and evolutionary biology. It does not look like they have ever had another one. It does say that there are a multiplicity of factors that go into behavior, not just the genes. It is the nature vs. nurture debate I guess.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/21/scien ... e-gap.html

seespotrun2008 wrote:So how many of our decisions are based upon our gene's survival skills and when can we override our genes? This may be something that is coming up in another chapter but this chapter is making me think of that. Can other animals override their genes? Is this a debate that goes on among scientists?

If you've found that something is not quite clicking in this material Dawkins is offering, I'm finding that, too. I need to spend some more time with it. Dawkins is certainly a fine explainer, an excellent science writer, so I can't put my finger on the problem. I have wondered, too, about the force our genes exert on us to pass on our genes through altruistic actions to those closely related to us. Is this something that happened as we were evolving and before we acquired conscious purpose, or does it still exert control despite our ability to (seemingly) choose actions according to the light of reason? Parents came to care for their offspring because of genes for that kind of altruism, but is our love for our children something we would call genetically controlled, based on our children having half of our genes? It must not be, because we can love adopted children just as much and put just as much effort into seeing that they do well in life.

I find some of the material a bit spooky, even though Dawkins presents it so calmly and with a minimum of drama. I'm talking about passages such as this from the beginning of the chapter:

what is a selfish gene trying to do? It is trying to get more numerous in the gene pool. Basically it does this by helping to program the bodies in which it finds itself to survive and to reproduce. But now we are emphasizing that 'it' is a distributed agency, existing in many different individuals at once. The key point of this chapter is is that a gene might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other bodies. If so, this would appear as individual altruism but it would be brought about by gene selfishness. (p. 88)

Even though Dawkins frequently reminds us that he uses the language of conscious purpose only to more easily get the concepts across, even the blind purpose (if that is not a contradiction) that is the real case is pretty amazing to consider. What is that? What do you call it?

If you've found that something is not quite clicking in this material Dawkins is offering, I'm finding that, too. I need to spend some more time with it. Dawkins is certainly a fine explainer, an excellent science writer, so I can't put my finger on the problem.

I don't know that it is not clicking. I kind of understand that Dawkins is talking about only a section of science and that he cannot possibly explain everything. From what I have been reading it almost seems like there are some scientists who believe that everything is controlled by the genes. We do not have any decisions they are all controlled by our genes. But others do not agree with that. So I think it is a debate. I think Dawkins thinks that there is some nurture involved though. He said that we should teach altruism. The question then is how much is nature and how much is nurture?

seespotrun2008 wrote:So how many of our decisions are based upon our gene's survival skills and when can we override our genes? This may be something that is coming up in another chapter but this chapter is making me think of that. Can other animals override their genes? Is this a debate that goes on among scientists?

This question needs to look at our evolutionary heritage more fully. What has been called 'overriding' of our genes means the use of our rational intelligence to make decisions where our genetic instinct sways us towards a different decision. For example we can decide not to eat food because we know it is bad for our health, although our genes for hunger are telling us that food is scarce and should always be eaten.

The key point here is that our rational intelligence has also evolved genetically, so the question is more a conflict between different genes than the postulating of a non-genetic source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_brain provides a good description of the human brain. It states "Especially expanded are the frontal lobes, which are involved in executive functions such as self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought." Brains today are the same as those of people tens of thousands of years ago, and have not perceptibly involved. Hence we can say that our 'executive function' is genetic, and indeed has been the key to human success.

The issue is that human life depends strongly on reasoning, so the conflicting selective pressures (reason and instinct) have their corresponding genes. Older parts of the human brain are common to all vertebrates, so instinctive action based on activity in these parts of our brain is what your question describes as genetic.

Interesting. Thank you, Robert.

Robert Tulip wrote:The issue is that human life depends strongly on reasoning, so the conflicting selective pressures (reason and instinct) have their corresponding genes. Older parts of the human brain are common to all vertebrates, so instinctive action based on activity in these parts of our brain is what your question describes as genetic.

I would differ from you, Robert, in not terming reason and instinct as 'selective pressures.' A selective pressure to my understanding has to be exerted by the environment. Reason and the adaptive responses of instinct developed as a result of environmental challeges to survival. Putting it the way you have makes it seem as though reason has an evolutionary mandate of its own, and I can't see how this could be the case.

You are correct in saying that reason vs. instinct is not a debate about genetic determinism, because both reason and instinct are supplied by genes. But there is a debate about genetic determinism when it comes to whether our parents' genetic input compels us to be like them. Even if human cloning were possible and 100% of a parent's genes were passed to the child, it is not certain that these two humans would be identical. The environment is thought to play an important role in whether genes are expressed in a certain way. The phenotype could vary from the genotype even when the offspring is a clone, at least when we are considering humans. Conceivably, the clone of a schizophrenic parent could manage to avoid being afflicted with the disease. The field of epigenetics--how the environment modifies the genetic heritage--is an interesting one.

DWill wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:The issue is that human life depends strongly on reasoning, so the conflicting selective pressures (reason and instinct) have their corresponding genes. Older parts of the human brain are common to all vertebrates, so instinctive action based on activity in these parts of our brain is what your question describes as genetic.

I would differ from you, Robert, in not terming reason and instinct as 'selective pressures.' A selective pressure to my understanding has to be exerted by the environment. Reason and the adaptive responses of instinct developed as a result of environmental challenges to survival. Putting it the way you have makes it seem as though reason has an evolutionary mandate of its own, and I can't see how this could be the case.

Good point Bill, I should have said selective pressures impacting on reasoned and instinctive responses.

I find this a really interesting question, in that our modern global circumstances have in some real sense departed from the old purely natural context of evolution where the sort of ‘machine response’ that Dawkins describes is clearly no longer sufficient. We can describe instinct, (and so perhaps all animal life?), as a mechanistic response determined by genetic programming, but rationality is qualitatively different. The difference is not just a matter of free choice, as Dawkins demonstrates that animals display freedom in the way they are unpredictable as to whether for example they will run or fight when confronted. Descartes argued that animals are machines without spirit, but that seems to be an unfair disparagement. It seems clear that animals display rational freedom too.

One thing here is that the term 'instinct' seems to have fallen out of favour. I'm not sure why.

Robert Tulip wrote: I find this a really interesting question, in that our modern global circumstances have in some real sense departed from the old purely natural context of evolution where the sort of ‘machine response’ that Dawkins describes is clearly no longer sufficient. We can describe instinct, (and so perhaps all animal life?), as a mechanistic response determined by genetic programming, but rationality is qualitatively different. The difference is not just a matter of free choice, as Dawkins demonstrates that animals display freedom in the way they are unpredictable as to whether for example they will run or fight when confronted. Descartes argued that animals are machines without spirit, but that seems to be an unfair disparagement. It seems clear that animals display rational freedom too.

One thing here is that the term 'instinct' seems to have fallen out of
favour. I'm not sure why.

I agree, Robert, that we don't naturally evolve, at least not at a rate that we would be able to notice, but we do 'evolve' in a more general sense, that is culturally. I think Dawkins also believes that our rationality or consciousness has set us on a different track from the other animals. He attributes to culture, and not to natural forces, our ideas that that enable us to be to an extent independent from nature. I think the void that is left for him prompted him to fill it with a quasi-naturalistic theory of memes. I'm not with him on this, though, feeling that it adds nothing to our ability to understand the hows and whys of culture change.

I think you might be right about instinct being passe. I don't know why this is. On the rationality of animals, one of the philosophers in the de Waal book we read termed animals as 'wantons,' meaning that they are more or less at the mercy of their genetic programming as we view them in action. This does seem very close to instinct, doesn't it? At least one of the other philosophers agreed with this idea of wantonness. I can see some truth in this view as I consider the dog I've been living with for the past ten years. No offense, Hazel.