He is obviously speaking about the behaviors of genes and animals. What else? The behaviors of lampposts? — Olivier5

Then there is no basis for communication. He's saying that altruism and selfishness are not emotional states at any scale. If you're reading into that that he's claiming that genes are literally selfish, there's no point in correcting you, since you can read into my correction its exact opposite or anything else.

I don't have the book in front of me right now, but I'll rattle off some examples when I do.

In any case the question of 'metaphor' is a sideshow. Dawkins uses it as snakeoil to slide in and out of when and as he needs; the question is if the underlying notion which it is used to communicate - the gene as the sole unit of natural selection - is valid or not. It isn't, and the book is a waste of the trees that were destroyed in its printing for it.

I don't have the book in front of me right now, but I'll rattle off some examples when I do. — StreetlightX

That's fine, I read it a long time ago and don't pretend to have perfect recall of it.

In any case the question of 'metaphor' is a sideshow. — StreetlightX

Not to Midgley's criticism as I see it. The claim that Dawkins pretends the metaphor is only a metaphor is central to her social Darwinism straw man.

He's saying that altruism and selfishness are not emotional states at any scale — Kenosha Kid

Indeed, and he is also saying that these ways of speaking are about the behaviors of genes and animals. Hence my objection remains valid:

We are left to wonder how a gene could possibly "behave" in the first place, how it could possibly "behave" to increase another gene's "welfare", and even how it could possibly pay for the "expense". As for "the exact opposite" of altruism, what would that be? An entity that behaves to increase its own welfare at the expense of other entities' welfare? How would that happen in the case of a gene? The gene for cholinesterase tells the gene for hemoglobin to get lost because he's taking over it's locus? Or are we talking about alleles, mysteriously undermining the chances of other alleles present in other organisms?

I did find her article enjoyable, witty but a bit too much all over the place. The arguments could have been presented with greater clarity, in sequence, in my not so humble opinion. Hence the "doing so always makes for confused argument".

Not to Midgley's criticism as I see it. — Kenosha Kid

She cuts to the quick after her small discussion of metaphor to note that it's all just a bunch of window dressing to get across the point that "Shorn of its [the metaphor's] beams, it turns out to be a point about the ultimate 'unit of selection'". And then further down: "When the mountains of metaphor are removed, in fact, what we find is not so much a mouse as a mare's nest, namely the project of finding a unit which will serve for every kind of calculation involved in understanding evolution; a 'fundamental unit' at a deep level which will displace, and not just supplement, all serious reference to individuals, groups, kin and species, and which (for some unexplained reason) will also be the unit of selfishness or self-interest". Again, all this is exactly right.

Getting hung-up on 'whether it's a metaphor or not' is all rather irrelevant, or a sideshow at best - although there is something to say of Dawkins' slip-and-sliding in and out of metaphor when and as he pleases to cover-up the inadequacy of his presentation.

I wrote an essay on it for a class on moral psychology 13 years ago: — Pfhorrest

You've thought about everything haven't you? You must be a brain in a vat or something, fed on royal jelly.

You've thought about everything haven't you? — bert1

He has, to his immense credit.

She cuts to the quick after her small discussion of metaphor — StreetlightX

It isn't a small discussion: it starts on the first page and ends on the last. She ends the article with the same straw man she starts building on page 1, wherein memes inherit the anthropomorphic status she decides genes have been given, and relies on throughout.

Two pages prior, for instance, she bemoans the alleged fatalism of selfish genes, as if genes being selfish somehow determined how a human will behave in a given instance, which is again anthropomorphism.

In the page before that, she equates the metaphor of genes being Chicago gangsters with the statement that people are Chicago gangsters.

Her entire essay is centred around this gross straw man that, no matter how often we're told that genes are not synecdoche for people, that they're not really conscious beings with wills of their own, we must in fact believe that that's precisely what genetic theory tells us (for her gripe is with genetics generally, not just Dawkins, as her corpus attests) so as to dismiss genetics as social Darwinism.

To all of those who insist that Dawkins is being metaphorical all along, how are we to make sense of this line?

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

If this is a metaphor I don't understand it.

We are made of "selfish" things: genes behaving as if they had self-interest. But we shouldn't therefore be social Darwinists.

Her entire essay is centred around this gross straw man that, no matter how often we're told that genes are not synecdoche for people, that they're not really conscious beings with wills of their own, we must in fact believe that that's precisely what genetic theory tells us (for her gripe is with genetics generally, not just Dawkins, as her corpus attests) so as to dismiss genetics as social Darwinism. — Kenosha Kid

Then it seems to me that you are not a good reader, who mistakes a framing device - one explicitly authorized and in fact tributary to the very source it critiques - for substance. Gripe with genetics?

"The reason why he [Dawkins] cannot get off this subject is not that he knows no genetics, but that all the genetics which he or anyone else knows is solidly opposed to his notion of genes as independent units, only contingently connected, and locked in constant internecine competition, a war of all against all."

Hmm.

I still don't follow. If genes behave 'as if' they had self-interest (that is, only metaphorically speaking), why would this have any bearing on our behaviour or our need to teach altruism?

It's as if Dawkins had said:

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Let us therefore try to teach theatre-relevant occupational health and safety, in case a fire breaks out."

I can kill someone with a hammer. — Kenosha Kid

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/claygate-attack-woman-telegraph-hammer-19041217
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/woman-attacked-moseley-hammer-wielding-18427078
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1282394/Portsmouth-hammer-attack-Local-describes-teen-girl-found.html

Not as easy as you might think. Perhaps consider a bladed weapon instead? 'The right tool for the job', I always say.

Clearly, I must read her work.

I still think fondly of the way Austin eviscerated Ayer in Sense and Sensibilia, but she seems to have taken him on in a different manner.

Does anyone know if she wrote anything about H-H-Heidegger (pardon the typographical stutter--I'm so far gone even seeing his name enrages me)? If she did, please let me know, but not if she admired him. I don't think I could stand it. Sob.

Then it seems to me that you are not a good reader, who mistakes a framing device - one explicitly authorized by the very source it critiques - for substance. — StreetlightX

I really don't think any improvement in my reading comprehension is going to show that she dispenses with the straw man early on when she clearly doesn't, or that one third of Dawkins' book is dedicated ('literally') to explaining the metaphor, which it clearly isn't. The problems with reading appear to be yours and to be frequent.

locked in constant internecine competition, a war of all against all." — StreetlightX

Dawkins is not Midgley's only target. She takes the same umbrage with other geneticists, theoretical or experimental. Her gripe, that genes effect human behaviours such as altruism, is all too evident here though.

I still don't follow. If genes behave 'as if' they had self-interest (that is, only metaphorically speaking), why would this have any bearing on our behaviour or our need to teach altruism? — coolazice

He's just saying that just because our genes behave a certain we, it doesn't mean we should. Because assholes have a habit of anthropomorphising genes too.

Not as easy as you might think. Perhaps consider a bladed weapon instead? 'The right tool for the job', I always say. — unenlightened

With a spoooooon!

I've looked into the "Darwin Wars", wars in which the Midgley-Dawkins dispute is seen as an important battle. Gould is branded as playing the leading role on Midgley's camp, and Dawkins as leading the other camp.

Another important drama in these "wars" was the mathematical discoveries and subsequent suicide of George Price, a colleague of Hamilton. This is interesting re. the possible consequences of bad philosophy, so here is the story (from Wiki):

Price was a mathematician who approached Hamilton late in his life, and out of the blue developed a new interpretation of Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection, the Price equation, which has now been accepted as its best interpretation. He wrote what is still widely held to be the best mathematical, biological and evolutionary representation of altruism. He also pioneered the application of game theory to evolutionary biology, in a co-authored 1973 paper with John Maynard Smith. Furthermore, Price reasoned that in the same way as an organism may sacrifice itself and further its genes (altruism) an organism may sacrifice itself to eliminate others of the same species if it enabled closely related organisms to better propagate their related genes. This negative altruism was described in a paper published by W. D. Hamilton and is termed Hamiltonian spite.

Price's 'mathematical' theory of altruism reasons that organisms are more likely to show altruism toward each other as they become more genetically similar to each other. Thus, in a species that requires two parents to reproduce, an organism is most likely to show altruistic behavior to a biological parent, full sibling, or direct offspring. The reason for this is that each of these relatives' genetic makeup contains (on average in the case of siblings) 50% of the genes that are found in the original organism. So if the original organism dies as a result of an altruistic act it can still manage to propagate its full genetic heritage as long as two or more of these close relatives are saved. Consequently, an organism is less likely to show altruistic behavior to a biological grandparent, grandchild, aunt/uncle, niece/nephew or half-sibling (each carry one-fourth of the genes found in the original organism); and even less likely to show altruism to a first cousin (carrying one-eighth of the genes found in the original organism). The theory then asserts that the further genetically removed two organisms are from each other, the less likely they are to show altruism to each other.

On 6 June 1970, Price, until then an atheist, had a religious experience and became an ardent Christian.

Price grew increasingly depressed by the implications of his equation. As part of an attempt to prove his theory right or wrong, he began showing an ever-increasing amount of random kindness to complete strangers. In this way, he dedicated the latter part of his life to helping the homeless, often inviting homeless people to live in his house. Sometimes, when the people in his house became a distraction, he slept in his office at the Galton Laboratory. He also gave up everything to help alcoholics; yet as he helped them steal his belongings, he increasingly fell into depression.

He was eventually evicted from his rented house owing to a construction project in the area, making him unhappy because he could no longer provide housing for the homeless. He moved to various squats in the North London area, and became depressed over Christmas, 1974.

Possibly due to the long-term complications of his thyroid treatment, Price committed suicide on January 6, 1975 by cutting his carotid artery with a pair of nail scissors. His body was identified by his close colleague, W.D. Hamilton.

I don't buy Price, Gould or Dawkin's analysis. Altruism is grounded in empathy and it is this that has to be explained. Altruism an empathy cannot be explained within the paradigm of these people. The only explanation for empathy I know, especially cross-species, is the unity of life and consciousness.

Great discussion by the way. I've just arrived from a forum where not one thread is of this quality.

I don't buy Price, Gould or Dawkin's analysis. Altruism is grounded in empathy — FrancisRay

The interesting contribution (for me) that Midgley provides in her solid take-down of "Gene the Shellfish" is that social behaviors are mediated by emotions, such as indeed empathy, affection, but also anger, envy, etc. So she is saying, perhaps as you are saying, that in-between genes and behaviors, there's a third level, that of emotions. Our genes may somehow affect our emotional make up, and our emotional make up affects our behaviors. In short, the route between genes and our behaviors would be indirect, and go through emotions.

All this is of course theoretical: it's essentially based on mathematical formulas, rather than on empirical data about the actual altruism of elephants or fishes.

Gould is branded as playing the leading role on Midgley's camp, and Dawkins as leading the other camp. — Olivier5

That makes sense to me. Midgley's objections seem to be of the magical human variety, wherein anything less than human that influences human behaviour is bad and anyone who talks about it is pushing a political agenda. Gould is a creationist, so comes from that magical human background. They ought to see eye to eye on a lot.

This is rather different from, e.g., Myers' beef with Dawkins which is based on whether genetic drift or adaptation have primacy (spoiler: it's the latter), which represent disagreements in evolutionary science itself.

Gould is a creationist — Kenosha Kid

LOL. You can't beat this place for entertainment.

Gould is a creationist — Kenosha Kid

Ohh you're a loon. OK as you were.

LOL. You can't beat this place for entertainment. — Olivier5

Okay, a lapsed creationist, now agnostic. Point still stands. There's a subset of people who need humans to be a bit magic: dualists, religious folks, and people like Midgley.

Altruism is grounded in empathy and it is this that has to be explained. — FrancisRay

There are studies that show that humans look directly into one another's eyes more than our closest living relatives. The difference is down to genetics, but whether it was an adaptive change, we dont know.

It's become possible to analyze genes looking for signs of adaptive change. One studies concludes that our faces are primarily the result of genetic drift. Maybe one day we'll see how genetics is tied to human behavior.

Stop making a fool of yourself, please?

Altruism is grounded in empathy and it is this that has to be explained. — FrancisRay

Gazzola, V., Aziz-Zadeh, L., & Keysers, C. (2006). Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans

Stop making a fool of yourself, please? — Olivier5

I'm sensing you're in that subset. No offense...

You are lying about Gould. That's pretty disgusting. No offense...

Ah come on, you undermined yourself there.

Anyways, leaving this dumpster fire of a conversation.

You are lying about Gould. That's pretty disgusting — Olivier5

Gould is an advocate of the idea of non-overlapping magisteria, that science and religion can live happily because only religion can explore values, that science has no business there. He was raised an orthodox Jew iirc and now holds that, gun to head, there probably isn't a creator. He's in that subset: believes there might be a magical man in the sky who made us, therefore only religion can enquire about our values.

I had a look at the paper but it doesn't appear to be relevant. .