Lee, Hmmmm! As I wrote the post down, I was having nervous feelings, which you now confirm. A selfish act does not need to be in the interest of that act itself, but of the actor. So if we think of the gene as a kind of act, and we think of the population as choosing the act for its own benefit, then perhaps the metaphor survives. I still think Dawkins use of the metaphor fails, because he wants to claim that the level of selection IS the gene.
In short, point taken. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2019 5:28 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] excess meaning alert? (was, Re: are we how we behave?) Nick says, in relevant part: > For instance, when > sociobiologists use the notion of selfish gene, they may legitimately > disclaim the idea that genes consciously choose between self-regarding > and other-regarding options, but they cannot legitimately disclaim the > idea that a gene has the power to make any choice but the > self-regarding one And that idea is patently false. Genes do not make > choices, they ARE choices and the choice is made at the level of the > phenotype or at the level of the population, depending on how one thinks about the matter. > My position is that I favor each and every one of us taking whatever > responsibility for understanding our own "convex hull" of > capability/knowledge/intuition as we are capable of and "managing" it > to the best of our ability. Although I am always happy to impugn the integrity of sociobiologists, and in particular have no doubt that they are (perhaps not deliberately with malice aforethought) equivocating on the meanings of "selfish", there *are* two such meanings in common usage, which lead to two possible readings of the phrase "selfish gene". (1) The first meaning of "selfish" (in the nearest dictionary) is "concerned chiefly or only with oneself"), and using that one, the phrase "selfish gene" deserves all the scorn and deprecation you have for it, precisely because the reading of the phrase enforced by that definition of the adjective forces "self"-hood on the gene. (2) However, the second meaning of "selfish" is "arising from, characterized by, or showing selfishness" (where "selfishness", not explicitly defined in this dictionary, has to be taken as implicitly defined by (1) in what might loosely be called a recursive manner); the example phrase, "a selfish whim", illustrate that the "self" to which "selfishness" is ascribed need not (and I would say, generally is not) the noun directly modified by "selfish" ("whim" or "gene"), but is rather some other (actual or metaphorical) agent (the person whose whim it is or the population/phenotype which has--metaphorically--"chosen", i.e., actually *evolved*, the gene). To the extent sociobiologists carelessly equivocate between those meanings, they are to be corrected; to the extent that they do so tendentiously, they are to be deplored (as well as corrected); but perhaps some of them (with whom you are not familiar, or who you have possibly misread) make it explicit that they are using meaning (2)? *Those* sociobiologists ought to be commended! ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
