Hi John -- I would hope they don't :) When I made that statement, I was not thinking so much of the serious researcher. However I do think it is important to communicate that genes are not alive, in any real sense, nor are they motivated by some survival instinct, not for the researchers sake -- they are not confused -- but in order to prevent this kind of confusion arising in the non-technical public, where there is a lot of confusion and poor understanding at play. When someone such as Dawkins makes statements like the one I quoted below -- he is so good at coming up with publicity generating sound bites -- he is skating quite close to the line of anthropomorphizing the gene and imputing it with motives. I don't think he believes that personally, but the meme of the selfish gene to use another one of his popularized terms has gotten a lot of people very confused. "We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment." -- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene -Chris D
________________________________ From: John Clark <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 10:27 AM Subject: Re: Serious proof of why the theory of evolution is wrong I agree that it is useful to try to see things from the genes point of view Yes > without of course falling into the mental trap of anthropomorphizing the gene and assigning to it qualia that are associated with self-aware consciousness. > I am unaware of any thinker on evolution worthy of the name who has fallen into such a silly trap. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
