http://aeon.co/magazine/science/why-its ... e-to-rest/


And this comment by physiologist D. Noble:

More profound is the complaint that the gene-centric view can't be experimentally verified. According to philosopher Karl Popper, to whom Mr. Dawkins doffs his cap in "An Appetite for Wonder," the criterion that makes a given statement scientific is whether it can be proved wrong—falsified, in Popper's term. Could one conduct an experiment to disprove gene-level selection, as opposed to selection on the level of the individual? Nope, wrote the distinguished Oxford physiologist Denis Noble in 2011: "The selfish gene idea is not even capable of direct empirical falsification." If Mr. Noble is correct, Mr. Dawkins's schema, however interesting, falls into the category of rhetoric or philosophy, not science

If people don't like using the word "selfish," that's fine, it really doesn't change anything. It's a metaphor to explain evolution, not a new theory.

To repeat, genes are still the replicators being selected for. Just because genetic expression is complicated and is affected by the environment doesn't really change that.

This was part of a lengthy response to the Dobbs article:

After all, the metaphor simply means that, during the process of natural selection, genes “act” as if they were selfish. And that means that those genes that replicate faster than others—those that make their “vehicles” leave more copies of those genes—spread through the gene pool, out-competing other gene copies. It’s a metaphorical and, to me, enlightening description of natural selection, for it helps one see more clearly how evolution works.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.co ... on-part-i/

Dobbs's comment to Coyne:

I won’t engage this point by point at this stage. I ackowledge I may have muddled some things in my article, but feel that Coyne here overstates and engages in something close to willful misreading.

To try to clarify some of this, I’ve a post at my blog: http://j.mp/TLDRdie

Most crucially, I seem to have not made clear that my challenge was less to an technical account of nature than to a metaphor and story used to describe those technicalities. To put it another way: I apparently did not make clear that “Die, Selfish Gene, Die” is a story less about how genetics and evolution work than about the stories we tell about how genetics and evolution work

ant wrote:http://aeon.co/magazine/science/why-its ... e-to-rest/


And this comment by physiologist D. Noble:




Quote:
More profound is the complaint that the gene-centric view can't be experimentally verified. According to philosopher Karl Popper, to whom Mr. Dawkins doffs his cap in "An Appetite for Wonder," the criterion that makes a given statement scientific is whether it can be proved wrong—falsified, in Popper's term. Could one conduct an experiment to disprove gene-level selection, as opposed to selection on the level of the individual? Nope, wrote the distinguished Oxford physiologist Denis Noble in 2011: "The selfish gene idea is not even capable of direct empirical falsification." If Mr. Noble is correct, Mr. Dawkins's schema, however interesting, falls into the category of rhetoric or philosophy, not science

That's an illuminating article ant. What's often the key issue and point of contention is the question of design or apparent design.
Richard Dawkins holds that the "blind watchmaker" of natural selection gradually over time sculpts by elimination and selection, entities that look designed. This is an illusion in his view.
He often points to examples of what he considers to be bad design though when examined this is shown by opponents to be false.
The theory predicts that over vast periods of time and mutations there would be a huge swathe of no longer functional dna dubbed junk dna, in the genomes.
This at first glance seemed to be the case. In reality the study of genetics and the functioning of the cell is still a work in progress and there is a tremendous amount still to be understood.
Those who favour actual design predict a very high level of functionality and research seems to be moving in that direction the more that is learned and understood.
Even today there is contention here with some scientists holding out for the accumulated junk d.n.a. thesis.
Here's a recent interesting N.Y.Times article which highlights this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/magaz ... .html?_r=0
It also seems that scientists are having great difficulty even defining what a gene is. What's clear is that the levels of complexity here are huge and multifaceted.
Those who argue for design tend to be critical of the standard neo-Darwinian explanation. Here's one example where Richard Sternberg gives his take on the present state of things.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intellig ... na-part-5/
It's easy to dismiss Sternberg as part of the intelligent design movement.
What is clear is that Richard Dawkins view itself appears ideological, so it really comes down to who is really interpreting the data as it unfolds in the best way.

What is clear is that Richard Dawkins view itself appears ideological, so it really comes down to who is really interpreting the data as it unfolds in the best way.

That's right. And the language he uses reflects that ideology.
It's highly misleading.

Ironically, science is evolving past Dawkins' old metaphorical/ideological notions.
Survival of the fittest!!

ant wrote:

What is clear is that Richard Dawkins view itself appears ideological, so it really comes down to who is really interpreting the data as it unfolds in the best way.

That's right. And the language he uses reflects that ideology.
It's highly misleading.

Ironically, science is evolving past Dawkins' old metaphorical/ideological notions.
Survival of the fittest!!

Are you going to try to defend any of these ridiculous assertions, or just throw some shit and hope that something sticks.

Your boy Dobbs there pretty much neutered his own article, it boils down to not liking the word "selfish"

I apparently did not make clear that “Die, Selfish Gene, Die” is a story less about how genetics and evolution work than about the stories we tell about how genetics and evolution work

So your thesis is what, it's Dawkins' militant atheism that led him to use the word?