The Problem With Selfish Gene Theory
Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 14:28
in Psychology & Sociology
The idea of the “selfish gene” was intended to shift focus from the organism to the gene to provide a different perspective on natural selection. It was been described as a metaphor, or simply a semantic issue. However, without precision in our use of such words, we risk creating assumptions and assigning values where none exist. This is the same problem that occurs in describing animal behavior when one anthropomorphizes. “The key question, as we shall see, is how natural selection can produce selfish genes that prescribe unselfishness.”Bert Hölldobler and Edward.O.Wilson, The Ants read more
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