So I’ve been reading this book, as I posted before –> The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Some may find a lot of his work offensive, but I find that if you can get over that — his words can generally be an eye opener as well as a mind boggler, mostly the latter as it pertains to myself. Anyways…
First, before I get going — I don’t want anyone to think that I’m attacking any religion or worldview, actually most of what I’m going to share has nothing to do with religion, though Dawkins never fails to throw a punch in here and there, which I happen to like — but that’s beside the point. Moving on…
So I figure I’d just offer some discussion of what has been particularly mind boggling to me, or of interest.
Uniqueness. A particularly interesting portion of one of the early chapters gives discussion about sexual combination between males and females. According to Dawkins, every single sperm/egg produced by either individual is completely, 100%, unique. What? There are probably millions of sperm produced and released every time a male ejaculates and you’re telling me none of them are the same? Ever? Whoa… just think about that for a minute. Another fun one is that the genetic makeup of ourselves is 1/2 mother and 1/2 father, but their genes were randomly redistributed to us, so we’re only 1/4 related, as far as genes are concerned, to each of our grandparents. I hadn’t really thought these thoughts before, though I realize it may seem like common sense, at least the 1/4 grandparents, 1/2 parents.
Dawkins spends much of the first 100 pages (and probably will continue to) building a theory about what he defines as the Selfish Gene. The theory goes something like this, though forgive me if it’s not entirely word-for-word accurate. Our genes act in our own interest and contrary to popular belief not for the benefit of the entire species. Now I use the word “our” here in the sense that I’m talking particularly about Humans, but as we will see — this logical explanation is not limited here to homo sapiens.
As an aside, it’s been quite fascinating to try to cross Dr. Dawkins’ thoughts with my own, especially those dealing with the idea behind the name of this website and my online persona, hehe. The Selfish Genes act in their own interest despite my idea that we should all work together. Hah. You might be thinking that there are plenty of acts of altruism in nature, as well as in humans, that completely dispell this theory’s potential. I had the same thoughts, and I love altruism examples so much, let me share a few before getting to the meat of the argument that Dawkins makes.
A couple altruism examples:
- Bees, as well as some other stinging insects: When a bee acts to defend the hive, it will sacrifice itself. The actual stinging process ruptures internal organs and causes the bee to die shortly after stinging. But why would the bee sting if it would not live to see the benefits of the saved hive/honey? Why? I find this a particularly fascinating example, and Dawkins, as I will try to do justice, gives a beautiful explanation using something along the lines of Game Theory.
- Some types of birds: Some birds will squeal and give a loud warning call when a predator is in the area. This puts the squealer at a greater risk of being noticed/attacked by the predator, but at the same time it protects the rest of the birds, same species or not, who may have not been paying attention. Cool.
In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins provides somewhat of a Game Theory explanation in that, in the long run, it will be beneficial to the genes of a particular individual if he/she presents some altruistic features. Therefore those genes will spread through the gene pool. Game Theory first appeared to me in Economics class, whereby you offer someone $.05 out of a dollar. They can either refuse and we both get nothing, or they can accept and I get $.95 and they get $.05. Most people refuse, because they feel cheated. Game theory is about pluses and minuses which make up a “score” of sorts, whereby you’re ( as the player ) trying to maintain the highest “score.” Rightly so, there will be cheaters that may take advantage of these altruistic behaviors, such as a warning cry to get the other birds to flee from food or something. But in the end, generation after generation it will tend to balance out.
Next, lifespan. Why should we die? Why should the genes that are in our bodies tend to lose steam and lack the ability to keep forging ahead. Here’s an interesting response. Again, like Dawkins, I am not advocating such a plan — but I do think it merits thinking about — mostly because it’s interesting. The reason we die is that the “bad genes” that cause late life disease, like cancer, or whatnot, don’t appear until later in life. With this being the case, they remain in the gene pool because we breed so early. Nearly everyone seems healthy in their 20s and 30s, it’s only the 50s, 60s, and on up where bad things start to show up, at least on average. Sure, bad things happen to young people, but I think we would agree that this is not the norm. Think about this: what if there was a mandated policy that people could not reproduce until they were in their 30s. This would certainly help things out a little bit, but imagine after a few generations upping it to 40, then waiting a few generations and upping it to 50. The idea is that the older you wait to have kids, the more the “healthy/good” genes continue to stay in the gene pool, and the “bad” genes have less and less of a chance to hide in the young. Interesting thought to ponder, he just gave a description about the abrupt loss of fertility to women and the gradual loss in men. The abruptness may be, as Dawkins points out, such that it benefits the woman more after that age to help with the grandchildren and pass on 1/4 of her genes instead of risk losing her own as well as a 1/2 product child. Bleh, anyway — interesting to think about.
The final point of interest that I have for this first post is in regard to populations. There’s an entire chapter dedicated to population, and how mothers in particular must make a judgement about how many should be in the litter. I’m not claiming it’s a conscious decision, but a decision nonetheless. Have too many and she won’t be able to provide for them all and those genes will tend to decrease. Have too few and she will be outnumbered and again, those genes will tend to decrease. There’s an “optimum number” clutch size, and it is somewhat experimental to figure that out, hah. Anyway, the interesting part is that he claims, and rightly so, that we, as humans, have abandoned this natural offspring-size regulator. In today’s age, you can have as many kids as you want - and if you can’t support them, then there will be public funded state welfare to help you out. Now think about it, the more kids you tend to have as an individual on welfare, the more of those genes, which tend to say ‘have more kids,’ live in the gene pool. Nature is brutal. If you have too many kids and can’t keep them alive alone, they die, problem solved. Now of course I’m not advocating for us to implement some kind of killing of welfare kids, nor am I claiming these individuals are knowingly abusing the system, I’m just pointing it out as a point of interest.
Sorry for taking a while (:
I was in Knoxville at my cousin Russell and new cousin Katie’s wedding. See you around (:
2 users commented in " Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene — Post 1 "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackInteresting post man. You did a good job summarizing what I’m sure is incredibly complex arguments. I am trekking with you, but I can’t say that I can buy the lifespan thing. I might be missing something, but that one sounds a little too far-fetched…I know it’s just a theory, and I’d have to read Dawkins to get the whole thing, but that’s my first response.
The part about Uniqueness is pretty cool. It’s amazing to me the intricacies of every human alive, and what it took for Person A to be Person A and not Person A.1, A.2, B, Z, or any other sum of genes. It’s fascinating to try and see how much genes play into who we are and how much has to do with how we are raised. Thanks for the post.
I don’t think there’s much to “buy” in the sense of the lifespan argument. Think about it with me:
Let’s say I’m predisposed to cancer. Why? Because I have relatives before me who have died from it, ie, their genes — and those before them — though they may be late bloomers, are in me. Why? Because my parents didn’t wait to make sure those “bad, cancerous” genes were not in either of them, to then be passed on to me. According to Dawkins, there is no genetic reason why we should die, only that the later blooming genes are often bad ones, and they remain in the gene pool because we breed so young.
Also, you must think about it in a generation-to-generation type mindset, rather than “oh, my kids.” Once a ban was set on young child birth, any bad gene that began expressing itself at 30 would most likely not be passed on, because people looking to breed who were 30 would probably not choose these individuals for mates. IE, lack of those ‘late-blooming’ 30 something bad genes. Now, once the gene-pool is ridded, or semi-ridded, of those 30-something blooming genes, up the ante and go to 40. The same general concept follows.
Is that a more clear explanation or does it still not jive? Let me know!
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