--- Message Received --- From: Eric Franz Leher <fr102anz at netvigator.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 23:18:11 +0800 Subject: Re: Selfish genes & population demographics
ERIC:
Incidentally why does it seem that leftists are so hostile to Dawkins?
>From what I've read by him a) pretty much everything he says about
evolution seems perfect sense and ought to be uncontroversial if
understood properly, and b) NOTHING HE SAYS IN ANY WAY (necessarily)
INDICTS A LEFT OR SOCIALIST PROGRAM.
So what's up?
Eric I enjoyed the post where you made the comment above, and agree very much with your conclusions (not sure about neo-darwinism however). I could not resist in replying to your honest question as it is an area of interest (though not of expertise).
It has two parts. I believe the left generally dislikes Dawkins because of the bilogical determinism involved in his thesis (thinking of "the selfish gene") there is a bit of a kneejerk reaction involved.
Certainly Dawkins has lead the charge on some substantial rethinks on the influence of gentics to some basic social traits, on the whole I have no great objection to the few that I have seen (people forget that Darwin did some excellent work on facial expressions in terms of biological evolution all of which has been broadly endorsed by latter science).
So my first answer is that on the whole the left will unthinkingly react to anything which suggests a foundation in biology for social behaviours (no matter how generalisied or trivial). There is also the residue of racism from social darwinism (the races are so recent in human history, it has always struck me as being absurd that any serious mind would with the accumulated knowledge of our long prehistory could imagine any real deepseated difference arising from these superficial adaptive traits - but that is aside from the question raised).
In short the left rejects Dawkins out of ignorance which is not the same as saying that Dawkins is without fault and a significant one at that.
Stephen Jay Gould really hit the mail on the head in his refutation of Dawkins based on Darwinist theory without reference to social or political conclusions (which is the best way of dealing with any theory as far as I am concerned).
I found Dawkins convincing, but could feel an unacceptable reductionism in his approach (in otherwords an articulate and reasoned position of which I could only muster the most general theoretical arguments against). Luckily, for me, Gould's knowledge of Darwin's theory is profound and he easily and clearly located the error within Dawkins.
Darwin made individuals the unit of transformation of species through evolution and it was not ignorance of genes which led to this but in fact his entire theory rests on it. The success or failure of the individual as an individual is key concept, reproduction and genetic survival are secondary to that feature, but obviously absolute necessities.
A great individual animal - highly successful in all reagrds is just a dead end in evolution unless that individual has successfully passed on its genes. In otherwords the reproductive aspect is postfactum to the relative success, a confining and determining logic - after the event - the event of course is the individual's actual survival (this is not Gould but my rendition - Gould is much clearer).
A relativelly unsuccessful animal can make a success of itself by adopting a successful reproductive strategy but only in the long term, in the short term it either survives or it doesn't. The two logics pit themselves against each other and manifest in a reproductive and relatively successful individual.
Hence there is a lot of room to move, and even apparent dead ends such as drone, non-reproducing animals can have a role in a socially organisied adaptive measure. In otherwords there is a built in tension which drives evolution to fill up the niches available - the unit for this is the indivdual animal - not the gene or the species (both of which have their proper place). It is a historical science involving the individual lives of these living units, there interractions and the product of them in so far as genes are capable of conveying this history through time.
I hope this garbbled version makes some sense (after all it is not Gould but my digested version of his argument).
Dawkins accordingly makes the error of dismissing the individual animal as an appendage that hangs off the gene (a one-sided error, half correct but all wrong). The reductionism I thought was there is in fact the method of argument, a conceptual problem (obviously Dawkins is no idiot).
Having placed the gene as the centre of the evolutionary process (afterall it is meaningless unless genetic change takes place) the process becomes in effect a side-effect of gene's existence (a truely odd view considering what nature actually consists of - ie individual organisms). Dawkin's logic given this bad premise is rigorous and hence convincing, I doubt he is even aware of the nature of the premise which to him must appear as just common-sense.
I do not believe that for one second that this is the reasoned position of the left on Dawkins, but I would suggest it is the reasoned error within his outlook. Dawkins, if memory serves, does not go for any mechanicalist interpretation (despite his stunning rhetorical statements about genes), this is often read into what he actually says but I cannot remmeber any such ideas actully being put forward by him (some may well argue that they are logical conclusions - but I don't believe such arguments are ever partricularily strong on any serious thinker of whatever political hue).
The problem is that Dawkins dissolves individual biological existence into genetic trnasmission, hence it is entirely logical for him to see us as necessary germs for this process (akin to Platonic ideals might be a fairer way of stating it). It is the tensions within Darwinist theory that keep it as living theory, transmission and existence could be summed up as life and death (as against life or death).
Death is critical to sustain such life (to reverse the normal order), that is death means an entire life is reduced to what is genetically transmitted, physically this is a simple statement of fact. But genes are not heirlooms, they flow through populations, mix and mingle in the act of reproduction and only in a few simple life forms are copied down the generations. Hence it is a muted inheritance hardly designed for sustaining genes as such, just stuff that takes on genetic form across the generations.
Dawkins sees a process deviod of real history and as something of a mathematical process of elimination played through time. Darwin sees a real history made up of individuals literally struggling to survive, ending with what is passed on and also begining with what was recieved. Darwin did not need genes to understand this process, it is enough just to accept that something passes through the generations picking up from a variety of limited choices and lumping the individual with the result and occasionally sporting a change just out of its chemical nature.
Eric I apologise for the ramblings, perhaps I would be clearer on this when I was less tired.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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