Philip Ball on the strange, often savage defense of a 40-year-old meme past its prime:
The fact is that genes can only propagate with the help of other genes. John Maynard Smith recognized this in the 1970s, and so did Dawkins. He chose the wrong title, and the wrong metaphor, and wrote a superb book about them.
I find it curious that there’s such strong opposition to that fact. For example, I’m struck by how, when the selfish-gene trope is questioned, defenders will often point to rare circumstances in which genes really do seem to be “selfish” – which is to say, where propagation of a gene might be deleterious to the success of an organism (and thus to its other genes). It is hard to overstate how bizarre this argument is. It justifies a metaphor designed to explain the genetic basis of evolutionary adaptation by pointing to a situation in which genetic selection is non-adaptive. You might equally then say that, when genes are truly selfish, natural selection doesn’t “work”.
What is meant to be implied in such arguments is that this selfishness is always there lurking in the character of genes, but that it is usually masked and only bursts free in exceptional circumstances. That, of course, underlines the peril of such an anthropomorphic metaphor in the first place. The notion that genes have any “true” character is absurd. Genetic evolution is a hugely complex process – far more complex than Dawkins could have known in 1976. And complex processes are rarely served well by simple, reductionistic metaphors….
There is an old guard of evolutionary theorists, battle-scarred from bouts with creationism and intelligent design, who are never going to accept this, and who will never see why the selfish gene has become a hindrance to understanding. They can be recognized from the emotive hysteria of their responses to any such suggestion – you will find them clearly identified in David Dobbs’ excellent response to criticisms of his Aeon article on the subject. It is a shame that they have fallen into such a polarized attitude. As the other responses to David’s piece attest, the argument has moved on.
Photo: Grasshopper (Acrididae), Barbilla National Park, Costa Rica. Photo by Piotr Naskrecki/Minden Pictures/Corbis
