Genes are not Selfish!

This is a vastly misunderstood aspect of genetics - even by the leaders in their fields!

Leibnitz commented once upon the fact that at a distance far too great to hear any particular wave crashing on the shore, we can never-the-less hear the sea. Yet the crashing that we do hear is nothing but just many concurrent occurances of things that we can't hear.

If we are reductionist about this very simple event it is quite revealing. That sound which reaches our ear can be traced back to each of a number of waves. Each wave we can't hear. But they add together to make something that we can hear. So we are not hearing any particular wave. There is nothing on that beach that we are hearing. Instead all the waves are coming together to make a new sound called the sound of the sea. It is nothing that we can identify on the beach and point to, but instead the collection taken as a whole.

Yet there is nothing new on the beach called the "collection of waves" that we can point to. The collection of waves, is just a collection of crashing seawater.

This intricate complexity is rather missed on the beach as people view the sound of the sea as the same as the sound of a wave: but I bet if you listen carefully it is profoundly different (something having written this I will need to do myself).

Now the sea is a very example. Imagine how much more complex the relationship between the genes (genotype) and the characteristcs of an organism (phenotype).

Lulled into security by a few unique characterists (controlled by alleles) the concept of "gene" was developed as a mapping from the inherited DNA sequence and the characterists of an organism.

DNA codes for proteins and proteins alone. Thus the presence of particular proteins in an organism is obviously controlled directly by the DNA. The influence on chemical pathways of particular proteins is also fairly straight forward. However it is a very long way from analysis of individual pathways to the whole organism, just as it is a very long way from analysing the sound of a particular wave to hearing the whole beach in chorus. There are resemblances between the two but that is accidental, it need not be the case, and it is superficial and glosses over the qualitative difference between the components and the whole.

It need not be argued that an apple is a different concept from the collection of sub-atomic particles we have discovered it "really" is. When we eat an apple we don't think of these particles. Indeed we even say this "apple" meaning the juicy, fragrant and slightly sweet fruit that is nice to eat is made from chemicals (which are abstract ideas about elements and bonding). They are not the same, and one view does not replace the other or even explain teh other - it simply overlays the other. Without an apple to eat, the science would be rather irrelevant. Without the science, an apple would remain a childish characteur of itself. We don't ignore one at the expense of the other.

Why then when evolutionists think of animals do they only see the genes? Why when Dawkins sees the natural world does it morph from the natural world into a mental explanation of genes that do not overlay the reality, but replace it. Yes we all accept that DNA is a major component of inheritance, simply because it does indeed get passed from parent to offspring, it is conserved at great length in cell division, and it does code for proteins. Yet it is unproven that it is the only component of inheritence. And it is counter-intuitive to say that each characteristic maps in one-to-one reductionist way to the sequence.

It is like entering a maze. Indeed we go from DNA to characteristic in a simple pathway that unintelligent chemistry and physical processes can follow. Anyone can get lost in a maze. But trying to work backwards from characteristic to DNA is impossible, as would be escaping a maze with that many junctions and possibilities.

Now if the genes begin a game which ends with the characteristics, but we can't trace the characteristics back through the chaotic mess so clearly then what does that say about the whole evolutionary genetics theory? Selection working on a characteristic does not then map simply onto a particular section of the DNA - neither a coextended section i.e. a chunk, nor a virtual imaginery scheme where "some combination of DNA sequences corresponds to the characteristic" i.e. several related chunks.

In the "Selfish Gene" Dawkins crudely treats this problem as follows. A racing canoe takes say 10 rowers. You have many candidates to chose from but you can't run trials on individual rowers because a boat takes 10. So what you must do is run many trials on combinations of 10 rowers to find the best team. This is exactly what sex does by mixing up genes. He then argues that during the trials a good rower may be put with bad rowers in some trials and so not register. However over many trials the best rowers will become clear because teams with them in do better on average than teams without them. This way the best rowers get selected.

This is fine for rowers where the phenotype is simply a summation like the volume of the waves on the beach, or the interaction of incompletely domianant genes at a particular gene locus. But what if two rowers fancies a particular cox, or didn't like another rower? They would perform better on a boat with the cox, than on a boat without her. And likewise would perform better in combinations without the rowers they didn't like. Their performance is not a uniform independent contribution, but is dependent on the combination. Then sadly the solution space is not so linear.

Consider the genes for the fingers and thumbs. Within the system of the hand they have been selected to provide a wonderfully adapted tool. But what if they ended up attached directly to the body and not the arm? Suddenly they are rather useless. The genes in the hand are only an effective adaptation when in the same boat as those for the arm.

Thus genes are not so selfish but depend upon their environment which includes all the other genes as well. While they will compete with versions of themselves in a particular solution space - say for example the problem of the opposing thumb where a gene mutation which deforms the thumb will be selected against while one which selectes for contributes to better articulation will be selected for - this only works where thumb articulation is relevent to the organism. Were a sudden revolution to occur in the human gene mix so that we spent more time swimming we might lose the thumb in favour of webbed hands. The selfish gene suddenly finds its not about it at all but about the interaction of the whole organism almost like a wave-equation in physics.

So dawkins introducing the idea of selfish is purely cultural. It occurred during that period in recent history where Reaganomics and Thatherism were in the rise and seflishness was looking for justification. This is a very common event and we all need to be conscious of how we ourselves work together in a boat dependent upon cultural trends and each other.

What we call organism is not then a product of DNA even while DNA causes the characteristic of the orgainism! This is a naive interpretation of DNA and of the concept of an organism. The prevalence of evolutionary theory in all areas now lends to some concern from the writer however because this misunderstanding can be used to promote a insular, reductionist and selfish view of reality which is actually completely without evidence or justification.