He says "biologists use these words ("altruist", "selfish") in a special way, and then he fails to define the oh-so-special meaning he gives to them... — Olivier5

He immediately defines both words. It seems knowingly misrepresenting people is a genetic trait in genetic theory disavowers.

Like the flock of sparrows sitting on your fence, the peanut gallery has no interest in the true nature of space and time. — Metaphysician Undercover

But nonetheless can be counted upon to show up anyway.

Hey, just to let you know, I want to think on this some more, don't want to reply just for the sake of saying something. — SophistiCat

No worries Cat. I look forward to your challenging responses.

If evolution is about changes from one generation to the next in a gene pool, rather than changes in a population of organisms, then evolution is necessarily non-Lamarckian. — Srap Tasmaner

That touches on another problem with Midgley, which is that she dismisses the genetic theory of evolution on the basis that genes aren't propagated, only their likenesses. But, persuant to your question, a gene is identified as the type within a population, not the token within the individual. Reproduction is the means by which a gene propagates through that population over generations. I don't see it as either/or: one is part of the other.

The physicalism project is to account for mental activity, not some incompatible, abstract concept of "mind". — Relativist

I agree, with the correction that that is but one challenge for physicalism, not the entire physicalism project. Redefining 'mind' to be any response function simply leaves us in want of a new word to describe what used to be called mind. This does not mean that mind is a different kind of thing, e.g. irreducible or strongly emergent. It is simply what unifies a category for study that includes humans, horses and fish but not rocks, trees or electrons, namely those things with central nervous systems and sense apparatus, irrespective of whether they have access consciousness.

You understand the whole thread is visible, right? :rofl:

If you're looking for me to defend the use of metaphor when doing science or philosophy, you're wasting your time. Metaphor is a poor substitute for either. — creativesoul

Then don't use it. Most of us are comfortable with it.

There is no such thing as a selfish gene. — creativesoul

That is correct. And the world is not really a stage.

don't waste your time going around in circles because the terminological usage offends you so much. — Saphsin

:up: Yes, we appear to be a long way from where we started. Which is good.

My problems with the book is that it's outdated science — Saphsin

The reigning theory of reciprocal altruism at the time was group selection, an idea that is now niche.

Being metaphorically selfish is being called "selfish" despite the fact that that which is being called so is not capable of being so. Being metaphorically selfish is existentially dependent upon metaphor. Being selfish is not. You're conflating the two. — creativesoul

The emboldened part holds true. Your penultimate sentence is irrelevant, since nothing and no one holds that genes are literally selfish. What are you getting at here, that the book should have at worst been called The Metaphorically Selfish Gene? Is that your experience of how metaphor is done? "All the world is a metaphorical stage, and all the men and women merely metaphorical players?" "Advertising is the metaphorical rattling of a metaphorical stick inside a metaphorical swill bucket." I see a problem here...

but not developing beyond self-interest has been encouraged by our supposed political leaders for forty years. — Banno

True dat.

What will they do if God instructs them to murder and torture I wonder? — khaled

What do you mean, if? Abraham? Moses?

So there are no such thing as selfish genes. — creativesoul

If there are no such things as metaphors

All the rest of the paper was junk and her treatment of these issues was insubstantial. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, it's not good. The Selfish Gene is a book about reciprocal altruism, and yet Midgley believes that 'not all altruism is reciprocal' is a genuine criticism. She seems to have low expectations of her readers and I dislike that immensely.

the issue in the Gould quote, that environmentally driven selection has to take or leave whole individuals and cannot reach down to the genetic level; — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, a mutation is beneficial only if it benefits the entire organism, which in turn benefits it's entire genome. Like a group that benefits from a particularly good hunter. But there still had to be a benefit due to that mutation.

Are genes capable of acting in their own self-interest? — creativesoul

Literally speaking? No, of course not. They are dumb chemicals.

What does it take for something to be selfish? — creativesoul

To act in its own self-interest.

Competition in nature is not a metaphor when it is used about organisms that can envisage an outcome that is preferable to another outcome. — unenlightened

Competition in nature is not a metaphor full stop.

This is the danger of metaphors. — unenlightened

I can kill someone with a hammer. That is not the danger of hammers but of killers. Hammers are still very useful.

The title of the book is The Selfish Gene, not The Selfishness Gene; if you take the former to mean the latter, that's on you. — Srap Tasmaner

:up:

I've read this thread. I want you to answer the question, that way I will not misattribute words or meaning to you. — creativesoul

I'll refer to myself:

Genes undergo mutations which may vary biological characteristics, and selection pressures choose from those characteristics, and thus those mutations, those that will be most frequently propagated via reproduction (e.g. the theory of natural selection). Thus metaphorically genes are adapting to propagate themselves. Even if the biological characteristic is altruistic, such as human altruism, the genes responsible for that altruism are individually adapting to increase their own longevity. This is a useful metaphor. — Kenosha Kid

I need to see this. Gene Hackman, Max Von Sydow and Ian Holm... Three of my favourites!

What does it take in order for something to be metaphorically selfish? — creativesoul

Can you just scroll up? Saves having to repost the same thing many times. Cheers!

GENE THE SURVIVOR
(episode MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMCCCCLXXXIV) — Olivier5

:rofl: Basically we're describing The Royal Tenenbaums.

Gibberish. — creativesoul

Sound argument, I have no rebuttal.

Maybe that's the reason they are used in the wave function as well: it's a wave after all so Fourier's methods must apply? — Olivier5

They do. Generally, Fourier transforms of real functions are complex. The Fourier transform of a wavefunction of position and time is the wavefunction of momentum and frequency. Any wavefunction with nonzero momentum yields a complex wavefunction of space, thus the ground state wavefunction of a stationary system is generally real. This gets back to the fact that it is motion -- things changing position with time -- that introduces complexity. This is true also in special relativity, where the four-current in the vector representation is complex for nonzero current (for the + - - - convention... The charge is complex in the - + + + convention). This goes away in the tensor formulation of relativity because the spacetime metric handles the manipulation of real four-vector elements to yield real observables. Metrics are not used in QFT afaik, except in attempts to derive a QFT of gravity. Perhaps they should be, and perhaps if they were all wavefunctions would be real.

As an illustration, the four-momentum in vectorial relativity is: $P = [ E, i p_x, i p_y, i p_z ]$. The magnitude is then $E^2 - p_x^2 - p_y^2 - p_z^2 = E^2 - p^2 = m^2$ where units have c=1. This gives us the Einstein equation: $E^2 = p^2 + m^2$. The imaginary number is required to get minus square of momentum into the equation.

In tensor notation, we instead have the metric encode the relationship between time and space coordinates. R is a square matrix with diagonal (1, -1, -1, -1), 0 elsewhere. $P = [E, p_x, p_y, p_z]$. The above is then $P^aR^a_bP_b = m^2$. Everything is now real because the relationship between time and space has been removed from the quantity under consideration (the four-momentum) and placed in a tensor that solely handles that relationship.

Now I wonder, who could play the part if it was made in a movie? Vin Diesel? Jean-Claude Van Damme? — Olivier5

If it were the 70s, I'd vote for someone grittier like... Gene Hackman.

Metaphors aren't literally true. The world is not literally highly competitive, and this does not entitle us to expect certain qualities in our genes, like ruthless selfishness, because it's a metaphor, and so genes are not literally ruthless or selfish. And because genes are not literally selfish, we are not born selfish. — unenlightened

We are not born literally selfish, that's correct. We are born from stuff that's metaphorically selfish.

The world is not literally highly competitive, — unenlightened

Where has anyone said that competition in nature is a metaphor? It's one of the three postulates of natural selection.

Okay so it means "natural selection works on genes, eliminates the weak ones, and keeps the strong". Fair enough.

The Strong Gene, then. — Olivier5

It means what I said it means:

Thus metaphorically genes are adapting to propagate themselves. Even if the biological characteristic is altruistic, such as human altruism, the genes responsible for that altruism are individually adapting to increase their own longevity. — Kenosha Kid

I cannot understand this from 'strong gene', although if the argument is now merely a question of which single metaphor we prefer, it seems like the previous argument is very much resolved.

What I understand is that the metaphor of "selfish gene" maps to itself, it has no content, nothing that it is alluding to other than itself. — Olivier5

Then you do not understand the metaphor no matter how often it is explained to you. This is a limit of your understanding, not of the metaphor, and certainly not of the underlying theory.

And where is the selfishness coming from? It's in the eye of the beholder. — Olivier5

Okay. So you don't know what a metaphor is. Fine. A metaphor describes a thing by comparing itself to another, more familiar thing, in certain relevant aspects. It is not a one-to-one equivalency between two things. When we speak of natural selection literally, it makes sense to ask where the ability for genes to undergo mutations that increase its propagation potential. That is a good question; natural selection is a good answer (the only scientific answer). When we describe this behaviour as "selfish" metaphorically, it does not make sense to ask where this selfishness came from as if it were a literal thing. Do you understand?

Midgley quotes a few. — Olivier5

No, she decides that the metaphor has been abandoned without justification, because that's what suits her straw man. There's no point in which Dawkins says "Actually now this isn't a metaphor anymore." Dawkins reminds us many times, starting with the introduction, ending toward the end of the book, that this is just a useful metaphor, and yet Midgley's argument that he means it all literally is that he does not remind us every single time: "Not a word of caution about metaphors follows." This is the crux of Midgley's attack: there is no minimum number of times Dawkins can insist that selfishness is a metaphor such that she will accept that he means it metaphorically.

This is entreating her readership to gross stupidity. She is saying: no matter how often he tells you something, it just won't sink in, will it?

What part of "it misrepresents the scientific knowledge about ethology and evolution" did you fail to understand? — Olivier5

If you think the selfishness metaphor says anything at all about ethology, you have treated it not as a metaphor but in a literal sense.

Why, I think it does, by saying that any altruism in transactional, a desguised selfishness. — Olivier5

And that's anthropomorphism, an inability to reconcile the literal fundamental altruism of humans and the metaphorical selfishness of genes. Genes aren't people. Metaphors aren't literally true.

Interesting... What pedagogic power, may I ask? — Olivier5

If this needs explaining at this point, you're rather admitting that you're criticising something you don't understand. Genes undergo mutations which may vary biological characteristics, and selection pressures choose from those characteristics, and thus those mutations, those that will be most frequently propagated via reproduction (e.g. the theory of natural selection). Thus metaphorically genes are adapting to propagate themselves. Even if the biological characteristic is altruistic, such as human altruism, the genes responsible for that altruism are individually adapting to increase their own longevity. This is a useful metaphor.

Let's contrast this with what seems like a popular rebuttal on this thread, including Midgley's article on The Selfish Gene: " I'd like genes to be nice and friendly like nice friendly people. Therefore Dawkins is wrong and a social Darwinist and Nazi, and genes are altruistic and love one another and that's that." Science it ain't. There is no underlying literally true mechanism that this longed-for, anthropomorphising genetic altruism is a useful metaphor for. It doesn't even make sense. If a genetic mutation increases the likelihood of survival of an individual, it increases the likelihood of survival of all of the genes in that individual. It doesn't need to coordinate with other genetic mutations to do this, it simply needs to increase its own chance of survival.

One is that indeed Dawkins is ambiguous on the metaphor thing — Olivier5

She claims this. This amounts to her choosing to pretend it's not always metaphorical. I recall no such instruction from Dawkins' book to cease taking genetic selfishness metaphorically, do you?

Another points is that even if it was just a metaphor (which it's not) — Olivier5

Repeating the straw man doesn't make it real. This isn't pinocchio.

the 'selfish genes' idea would be a luridly simplistic and misleading metaphor, that it misrepresents the scientific knowledge about ethology and evolution — Olivier5

No. That's treating the metaphor as being literal. You do understand what a metaphor is, right?

Yet another point is that doing so is immoral, as it leads Dawkins' readers to either rationalise and amplify their most selfish behaviors (if they are 'winners' in the economic game, their genes deserve it), or to fatalism (if they are 'losers' in this game, that's because they have losers genes). — Olivier5

Yeah no. I don't know whether Midgley is just pathologically dishonest, a moron, or, most likely, a mixture of both. You are free to dumb yourself down to her level, but most of us are perfectly aware that how genes propagate has absolutely nothing to do with how we ought to behave as humans. It does not, for instance, eradicate the view that humans themselves are intrinsically altruistic, any more than atomic theory eradicates the view that room temperature iron is a solid. So speak for yourself, not for those generally interested in actual science.

And the interesting thing is that various species use quite different approaches, some could be labelled altruistic (individual to individual), some could be labeled selfish. — Coben

Yes, but that's just anthropomorphism. To extend the metaphor accurately, you'd also have to see "altruistic" behaviour in genes, which is illogical.

Her point -- and I think it is correct -- is precisely that it is NOT a useful metaphor. That a better metaphor would be that the genes are strong (i.e. efficacious). — Olivier5

Well it is a useful metaphor, insofar as it has pedagogical power, whereas just wanting genes to be altruistic on grounds of taste has none. Also, that was not her point. Her point rests on pretending that the metaphor is not a metaphor, such that she can construct the straw man that the selfish gene idea is some kind of social Darwinism and attack that straw man.

Alltruisitic behavior can benefit the speciies, the clan, the tribe - which means that genes in the group continue, and since other people in your group will also take care of you, your genes benefit. — Coben

That is precisely the metaphor: that altruistic behaviour benefits the genes that give rise to it. That is not an "altruistic gene" as in the opposite of what Dawkins described: that is a "selfish gene" for human altruism.

Said more crudely, a book making more or less the same Hamiltonian case about how our social behavior might have some evolutionary background rather than be pure 'nurture', but titled "The Altruistic Gene" would not have sold so well in the late seventies. — Olivier5

What would an altruistic gene be? It can't be just a gene for altruism, since that's what selfish genes that yield altruism are. Extending Dawkins' metaphor, an altruistic gene would be a gene that sacrificed itself for the sake of another gene. Such a gene could then not be passed down to future generations. It makes no sense, so apparently the attraction to the idea is emotive, not scientific.

In which case it seems like Midgley's error is less shocking than I first thought. The dislike for the idea of a gene behaving as if it were selfish, even though that is a useful metaphor for the actual behaviour, is all that it takes to invalidate a theory. One might wish that genes themselves behaved as perfect altruists, and it doesn't matter that this makes no sense, the important thing is it feels right. Anthropomorphism, where Dawkins intended mere metaphor, trumps science and logic, and hardly for the first time.

Here's the odd thing; why does it please the ladies? It must be, so the myth would have us believe, because partnering with a male with a big tail somehow helps the female's genes to survive... — Banno

Yes, through her sons with big tails that will please females.

:up:

But it's no adaptation to nothing, it's a flourish, an embellishment of life, an emerging phenomenon that was selected on easthetical grounds among a variety of possibilities. — Olivier5

Yes, sexual selection can yield arbitrary feedback loops.

Another point is that, when you see a male peacock show off his tail, it's hard to fathom what it is adapted to... — Olivier5

This is pan-adaptationism. Sexual selection, also formulated by Darwin, is also a contributor to evolution.

It might be possible to tell a "selfish protein" story — Srap Tasmaner

Except we don't pass on our characteristics to our progeny by sending the proteins our DNA encodes. We send chromosomes.

What? — frank

Did you even watch the video you linked?

Reference for adaptation is the dominant force in human evolution? — frank

Happy to oblige, although just a Google scholar search on "human evolution review" will sort you out. I'm just waiting for your reference for that original assertion that the evolutionary biologist consensus is that Dawkins'publications are junk science. Key words being "evolutionary biologists", not "creationists who'll talk shit to the Templeton Foundation".

This was fun when I thought you might be inspired to get yourself up to date. — frank

P.S. The Templeton Foundation -- your idea of a source -- bases its unquestionable wisdom on human genesis on a 3000 year old book. "up to date" indeed.

It wasnt Myers who did the research on that, but he did present that research in that lecture. — frank

And at least he knows he's going against the consensus.

An evolutionary biologist told me that. I didnt glean it from the internet. — frank

That's it? Well, two evolutionary biologists told me the opposite. So much for that.

Adaptation is not the dominant force in human (natural :lol: ) evolution according to scientists — frank

Yes it is. Just repeating it doesn't make it true. Except for some creationists, evolutionary theory does not maintain a separate subtheory for humans. From Darwin to Steve Jones, the orthodoxy of evolutionary theory has been that natural selection is the dominant force of evolution, for humans in particular and life generally. Myers thinks it's genetic drift. That's one guy, not a consensus.

Nope. Biologists. Humans dont have a large enough population to exhibit adaptation as the primary force of evolution. — frank

Then you're outright lying about the biologist consensus on human evolution, since that consensus is that humanity evolved largely through natural selection. Seems par for the course for you.

EDIT: Just to be not Frank, Pew Research's 2009 poll showed that 87% scientists believed that humans evolved naturally.

I'm a flat out nihilist, btw. I have no religion. — frank

And yet you quote Templeton Foundation studies and spout creationist nonsense. I think you're confused.