Selfish Gene Research Articles

'Morals can not be drawn from facts but guidance may be': the early life of W.D. Hamilton's theory of inclusive fitness.

W.D. Hamilton's theory of inclusive fitness saw the evolution of altruism from the point of view of the gene. It was at heart a theory of limits, redefining altruistic behaviours as ultimately selfish. This theory inspired two controversial texts published almost in tandem, E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) and Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene (1976). When Wilson and Dawkins were attacked for their evolutionary interpretations of human societies, they claimed a distinction between reporting what is and declaring what ought to be. Can the history of sociobiological theories be so easily separated from its sociopolitical context? This paper draws upon unpublished materials from the 1960s and early 1970s and documents some of the ways in which Hamilton saw his research as contributing to contemporary concerns. It pays special attention to the 1969 Man and Beast Smithsonian Institution symposium in order to explore the extent to which Hamilton intended his theory to be merely descriptive versus prescriptive. From this, we may see that Hamilton was deeply concerned about the political chaos he perceived in the world around him, and hoped to arrive at a level of self-understanding through science that could inform a new social order.

Altruism and evolutionary pahway. A review on the evolution of altruistic behaviour

Since the brave attempts to bring Biology to the center of the social sciences discourse, by Edward Wilson and Richard Dawkins with their books Sociobiology and The Selfish Gene, more than forty years ago, Biology has gained recognition as one of the, if not the, main area in the search for human behavior understanding. Disciplines such as behavioral genetics, cognitive neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology among others have been brought to the center of the spectacle in the quest for the understanding of the mind and the influence of those areas is growing every day. Within this perspective this article brings attention to how the problem of understanding human altruism could be better comprehended with the addition of the information brought by the biological disciplines involved in the understanding of human behavior.

The Sexual 'Cloud' in the Executive Suite

Nobody talks about sex in the boardroom. However, the sexual dynamics between men and women are age eternal and hover above like a cloud, motivating individuals at an unconscious level. In this article I argue that people today are very much governed by the same sexual desires that drove our primitive ancestors. Given where we are on the timeline of our evolutionary history, we still have very much a Stone Age Mind in a Stone Age Body. Not only are we driven by what has been labeled as the “selfish gene” (Dawkins, 1976) – or competition to propagate and survive – most of the time we are not even aware of the extent to which our sexual desires influence our behavior and actions. It is hypothesized that the primal anxieties about the consequences of sexual desire is a contributing factor to the reluctance of men to allow women entry into the upper echelons. This “selfish gene effect” can be seen as an extra hurdle for women to overcome to reach senior executive ranks. The article also points out that sexual discrimination is part of a more basic, social and developmental issue. To enable a more lasting change in attitudes, we need to go as far back as child rearing practices to re-examine how gender roles are established and reinforced. Slotting children into stereotypical male-female gender roles is not the answer. Only by making explicit unconscious gender biases and practices, can we begin to tackle the problem at its core and move towards a more androgynous orientation – which melds both feminine and masculine attributes within the same individual. Such an orientation will benefit both men and women alike. It is also pointed out that gender equality is not merely a woman’s issue. It is an issue that affects us all. Gender inequality lowers the quality of life for both men and women. While women bear the largest and most direct costs of these inequalities, these costs cut broadly across society, ultimately hindering social and economic development. It is put forth that senior executives who are truly serious about fair process in organizations have the obligation to “manage” the sexual “cloud” more effectively. They need to realize that in spite of the selfish gene effect, sexism is also a social – and hence curable – disease. They need to engage in more systematic measures to counteract deeply embedded assumptions about gender and role expectations and to create more women-friendly organizations. Various interventions are suggested to bring more equality into the workplace.

Origin, evolution, and population genetics of the selfish Segregation Distorter gene duplication in European and African populations of Drosophila melanogaster.

Meiotic drive elements are a special class of evolutionarily "selfish genes" that subvert Mendelian segregation to gain preferential transmission at the expense of homologous loci. Many drive elements appear to be maintained in populations as stable polymorphisms, their equilibrium frequencies determined by the balance between drive (increasing frequency) and selection (decreasing frequency). Here we show that a classic, seemingly balanced, drive system is instead characterized by frequent evolutionary turnover giving rise to dynamic, rather than stable, equilibrium frequencies. The autosomal Segregation Distorter (SD) system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is a selfish coadapted meiotic drive gene complex in which the major driver corresponds to a partial duplication of the gene Ran-GTPase activating protein (RanGAP). SD chromosomes segregate at similar, low frequencies of 1-5% in natural populations worldwide, consistent with a balanced polymorphism. Surprisingly, our population genetic analyses reveal evidence for parallel, independent selective sweeps of different SD chromosomes in populations on different continents. These findings suggest that, rather than persisting at a single stable equilibrium, SD chromosomes turn over frequently within populations.

Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Revised Edition). Edited by EvaJablonka and Marion J.Lamb. 576 pp. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2014. $29.95 (paper), $20.95 (e‐book).

Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Revised Edition). By Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb. 576 pp. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2014. $29.95 (paper), $20.95 (e-book). In the new edition of Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb jokingly refer to their endeavor as a “post-Modern…Synthesis” (p. 350), playing on the modern synthesis that united natural selection and Mendelian genetics. Here, the authors unite additional dimensions of evolution. However, there are other ways in which this label is also appropriate, as they aim to break down old distinctions, such as the vehicle/replicator distinction put forward in the Selfish Gene (Dawkins, 1978), and devote ink to the cultural and political influences on evolutionary thought. In this sense what they propose is a bit like postmodernism, in the dissolution of barriers, an emphasis on holistic thinking, and a critical appraisal of certain paradigms. At the same time, this is certainly not a book that rejects science. If anything, it seeks to cast those same cultural influences as amenable to scientific inquiry. In this revised 2014 edition, Jablonka and Lamb have changed little of the original text published in 2005. They have added footnotes in the main body to improve the experience for e- book readers and fixed a few typos. Most of the new content is contained in a new 79-page chapter, succinctly called “After Nine Years.” The present review largely covers the original text before discussing this new addition. Let me get right to the point: though not without flaws, this is a book that every anthropologist and evolutionary social scientist should read. A search on Google Scholar reveals that the book has 1,328 citations to date, so it certainly has not been ignored. Yet my impression is that its influence is scattered. It has, as it were, trickled in through the cracks. Yet for anthropology in particular the ideas in Evolution in Four Dimensions are particularly germane. Even though written by non-anthropologists, it exemplifies the four-field approach and, more importantly, bridges across them. Moreover, it does so with clear writing, quirky illustrations, and in a way that is, for the most part, non-polemical. The book is organized into four parts. The first section deals primarily with natural selection and genetic inheritance, beginning with the cultural and political history of Darwinism and Lamarkism leading to the Modern Synthesis. From here they consider the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes, and develop two key ideas: one is that for information to be meaningful, it must be interpreted by a receiver. Genetic information is meaningless without the cellular machinery to read it and put it to use. The second, related point is that they see networks of genes and their interpreters as the most fruitful units for evolutionary analysis, rather than simply genes alone. To be clear, this is primarily a proposal about framing, not a dispute over facts. Jablonka and Lamb signal this by arguing with themselves, in the form of dialogs between M.E. (Marion and Eva) and I.M. (Ipcha Mistabra, Aramaic for “the opposite conjecture”) placed at the end of each chapter. Whether the unit of inheritance is best considered to be a stretch of DNA called a gene, or a network of genes, or something else, is largely a matter of utility and preference. They end the first section by discussing the idea that the generation of novel genetic variation may not be an entirely random process. Mutation can be “semi-directed” by varying mutation rates in response to stressors or by varying mutation rates across the genome, such that mutations are more likely in areas where variation is beneficial. Here Jablonka and Lamb preface

The extended phenotype(s): a comparison with niche construction theory

While niche construction theory locates animal artefacts in their constructors’ environment, hence treating them as capable of exerting selective pressure on both the constructors and their descendants, the extended phenotype concept assimilates artefacts with their constructors’ genes. Analogous contrasts apply in the case of endoparasite and brood parasite genes influencing host behaviour. The explanatory power of these competing approaches are assessed by re-examining the core chapters of Richard Dawkins’ The Extended Phenotype. Because animal artefacts (chapter 11) have multiple evolutionary consequences for their constructors, the extra-body effects of a gene seemingly include feedback effects on multiple other genes, a result which is more consistent with niche construction theory than with selfish gene theory. In the case of endoparasite genes influencing host behaviour (chapter 12), Dawkins’ argument leaves out what appears to be the key explanatory component, namely the role of the host’s own bodily systems in making it possible for such genes to exist. For action at a distance (chapter 13), it is unclear whether the key genes have extended effects because they sit in the body of the manipulating organism, or alternatively do not have such effects because they sit in the body of its victim. It is argued that niche construction theory offers a superior explanation in all three cases, regardless of whether the extended phenotype concept is interpreted in selfish gene or selfish organism terms.

Proof for Evolution and Coming Out of Prison with Relational Dynamics

Within theories of mathematical prediction, decision and behavior such as game theory, there is the assumption that the players wish to win. The prisoner's dilemma points to the virtues of defection, or immediate self-preservation. Within the theory of evolutionary biology (Wilson & Wilson, 2007), motives are described from both the benefit of an individual and that of a larger group or collective, such as a colony, herd, pack or pod. Darwin described competition with his theory of survival of the fittest (Darwin, 1859 (reprinted 1982)); the theory of the selfish gene provides the motive of ensuring the transmission of similar genetics onto the next generation. (Dawkins, 1989) Nowak and Coakley (2013) explore the advantages of cooperation within evolution. Within psychological theory there is a preponderance of theory and clinical evidence that outlines other motivations such as Freud's death wish; sociopathic behaviors; philanthropists and altruism; racial/ethnic hatred, bullying and retaliation. Examples of strategies found in nature, the strategies for mutual benefit, best for me, best for you, and the best for neither are explored. A proof for evolution is provided outlining the rationale for cooperation. Cooperation; the sole outcome where there is long term gain and benefit for all versus other strategies such as competition and selfishness found in living organisms that ultimately results in extinction.

The Evolution of a Meme Cluster: A Personal Account of a Countercultural Odyssey through <em>The Age of Aquarius</em>

The Evolution of a Meme Cluster: A Personal Account of a Countercultural Odyssey through <em>The Age of Aquarius</em>

Messenger Bug: Ishmael Reed’s Media Virus

Messenger BugIshmael Reed’s Media Virus Madeleine Monson-Rosen (bio) Published in 1972, Ishmael Reed’s novel Mumbo Jumbo arrived in the midst of what science historian Lily E. Kay describes as a “gestalt switch to information thinking” (xv). Just as the application of Claude Shannon’s “Mathematical Theory of Communication” to digital systems resulted in networked computer communication, so the application of Shannon’s theory to biological systems resulted in a theory of genetics as information science: “It is within this information discourse that the genetic code was constituted as an object of study and a scriptural technology, and the genome textualized as a latter-day Book of Life” (Kay, 3). Richard Dawkins, whose 1976 The Selfish Gene is representative of Kay’s gestalt switch, explains genetics both in terms of print and in terms of computer programming, and coins the term “meme” to describe a media virus. For Dawkins, viruses reveal something essential about genetics and about evolution. Indeed, the distinction between gene and virus is somewhat arbitrary: “We are gigantic colonies of symbiotic genes,” not single unified organisms. Viruses, Dawkins suggests, “have evolved from ‘rebel’ genes who escaped, and now travel from body to body directly through the air, rather than via the more conventional vehicles—sperms and eggs. If this is true, we might just as well regard ourselves as colonies of viruses!” (182). Mumbo Jumbo centers on Jes Grew, a “psychic epidemic” (Reed, 5) whose rebel genes travel from human body to human body, and a media virus that “tied up the tubes,” that is, the vacuum tubes of 1920s radios (154). Reed develops what Dawkins implies, making the viral rebel genes of Jes Grew into a contagious form of social rebellion, the jazz music and dancing that emerge from African American culture: “If the Jazz Age is year for year the Essences and Symptoms of the times, then Jes Grew is the germ” (20).1 [End Page 28] Readings of Mumbo Jumbo, most notably by Henry Louis Gates and Madhu Dubey, have tended to highlight the novel’s postmodernism, arguing that Reed’s emphasis on text, writing, print, and communication offers a revisionist history of the African American literary tradition. In The Signifying Monkey, Gates argues that Reed signifies on the canonical literature of the Harlem Renaissance: “Mumbo Jumbo seems to be concerned to critique and to revise the modes of representation fundamental to the canonical texts that comprise the tradition of the Afro-American novel” (217). For Dubey, the search for Jes Grew’s missing text enables an authentic, if absent, site of origin for black American literature, distinguished from the economics of print culture that vitiate the Western literary tradition (53). These readings have produced a large body of scholarship on the novel, most of which investigates the ways in which Mumbo Jumbo incorporates and resignifies literature, including the canonical literature of the Harlem Renaissance, the detective novel, and science fiction. Yet Reed’s allusive text, I argue, has a hitherto unrecognized referential palette. Although Reed’s incorporation of both canonical and generic literary forms is undeniable, Mumbo Jumbo’s emphasis on textuality and print, on codes and cyphers, on communications networks, and on a media virus that spreads through human social networks and the technologies that connect them reveals, in the novel, an unmistakable intervention into the potent, historically current discourse of information science—including both genetic science and computer technology. The key themes of Reed’s text: viral contagion, media networks, and linguistic and alphabetic codes, are also the key themes of the discourse of information technoscience through the late 1960s and early 1970s, the period of Mumbo Jumbo’s composition and publication. Kay identifies a historically specific “poetics of technoscience” (152), emerging after the publication of the Mathematical Theory of Communication in 1948 and the discovery of DNA in 1953. In Who Wrote the Book of Life? she describes a “large-scale scientific and cultural shift in representation—the information discourse” (16). This shift characterized “communication technoscience (cybernetics, information, and computers)” (xv) as “scriptural,” that is, fundamentally determined by a history of print and writing. In the 1960s the genome becomes, according to Kay’s history, a “Book...

The organism as ontological go-between: Hybridity, boundaries and degrees of reality in its conceptual history

The organism is neither a discovery like the circulation of the blood or the glycogenic function of the liver, nor a particular biological theory like epigenesis or preformationism. It is rather a concept which plays a series of roles—sometimes overt, sometimes masked—throughout the history of biology, and frequently in very normative ways, also shifting between the biological and the social. Indeed, it has often been presented as a key-concept in life science and the ‘theorization’ of Life, but conversely has also been the target of influential rejections: as just an instrument of transmission for the selfish gene, but also, historiographically, as part of an outdated ‘vitalism’. Indeed, the organism, perhaps because it is experientially closer to the ‘body’ than to the ‘molecule’, is often the object of quasi-affective theoretical investments presenting it as essential, sometimes even as the pivot of a science or a particular approach to nature, while other approaches reject or attack it with equal force, assimilating it to a mysterious ‘vitalist’ ontology of extra-causal forces, or other pseudo-scientific doctrines. This paper does not seek to adjudicate between these debates, either in terms of scientific validity or historical coherence; nor does it return to the well-studied issue of the organism–mechanism tension in biology. Recent scholarship has begun to focus on the emergence and transformation of the concept of organism, but has not emphasized so much the way in which organism is a shifting, ‘go-between’ concept—invoked as ‘natural’ by some thinkers to justify their metaphysics, but then presented as value-laden by others, over and against the natural world. The organism as go-between concept is also a hybrid, a boundary concept or an epistemic limit case, all of which partly overlap with the idea of ‘nomadic concepts’. Thereby the concept of organism continues to function in different contexts—as a heuristic, an explanatory challenge, a model of order, of regulation, etc.—despite having frequently been pronounced irrelevant and reduced to molecules or genes. Yet this perpetuation is far removed from any ‘metaphysics of organism’, or organismic biology.

Mean genes: From sex to money to food: Taming our primal instincts, by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan.

No abstract

How Vladimir Putin’s Divorce Story Was Constructed and Received, or When the President Divorced His Wife and Married the Country Instead

When the Russian president divorced his wife in 2013, social media crowds coined plenty of the Internet memes to interpret the news. Anastasia Denisova, Doctoral Researcher at CAMRI, examined the framing of the story in traditional and new media and came to the surprising findings.

Does polyandry control population sex ratio via regulation of a selfish gene?

The extent of female multiple mating (polyandry) can strongly impact on the intensity of sexual selection, sexual conflict, and the evolution of cooperation and sociality. More subtly, polyandry may protect populations against intragenomic conflicts that result from the invasion of deleterious selfish genetic elements (SGEs). SGEs commonly impair sperm production, and so are likely to be unsuccessful in sperm competition, potentially reducing their transmission in polyandrous populations. Here, we test this prediction in nature. We demonstrate a heritable latitudinal cline in the degree of polyandry in the fruitfly Drosophila pseudoobscura across the USA, with northern population females remating more frequently in both the field and the laboratory. High remating was associated with low frequency of a sex-ratio-distorting meiotic driver in natural populations. In the laboratory, polyandry directly controls the frequency of the driver by undermining its transmission. Hence we suggest that the cline in polyandry represents an important contributor to the cline in sex ratio in nature. Furthermore, as the meiotic driver causes sex ratio bias, variation in polyandry may ultimately determine population sex ratio across the USA, a dramatic impact of female mating decisions. As SGEs are ubiquitous it is likely that the reduction of intragenomic conflict by polyandry is widespread.

A memetic algorithm based on multiple learning procedures for global optimal design of composite structures

The mechanical properties of composite structures are sensitive to the choice of the material systems, the distribution of laminates on the structure, and the sizing at the laminate level. This sensitivity depends on many variables. To overcome the difficulties in attaining a global solution for the optimisation problem of composite structures, a new strategy is proposed based on the hybridisation of the memetic algorithm (MA) and the selfish gene (SG) algorithm. Instead of a local search, as performed in MAs, the selfish gene (SG) theory is applied, which follows a different learning scheme in which the conventional population of the individuals is replaced by a virtual population of alleles. The proposed approach, which is called the memetic-based selfish gene algorithm (MA + SG), is a mixed model that applies multiple learning procedures to explore the synergy of different cultural transmission rules in the evolutionary process. The principal aspects of the approach are as follows: co-evolution of multiple populations, species conservation, migration rules, self-adaptive multiple crossovers, local search in hybrid crossover with local genetic improvements, controlled mutation, individual age control, and feature-based allele statistical analysis. To discuss the capabilities of the proposed approach, numerical examples are represented to compare the results of MA + SG with those obtained using genetic algorithms (GA) and MA. The numerical results of the comparison tests showed that the GA and the MA maintained long periods without the evolution of the best-fitted individual/solutions. This behaviour during evolution is associated with the slow maturation of the elite group of populations in the GA and MA approaches. This behaviour is avoided when the MA + SG proposed approach is used with computational cost benefits.

To thine own self be false: Self-deceptive enhancement and sexual awareness influences on mating success.

Over 25 years ago, evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers proposed in the introduction to Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene that self-deception might facilitate otherdeception in intersexual competition and thereby be an unconscious adaptive mating strategy. Self-deception, or the unconscious deception of self through holding beliefs in the face of strong contrary evidence, may facilitate manipulation of others by concealing cues of cognitive load that generally accompany conscious deception. One prediction of this model is that self-deceptive self-promotion benefits mating success. We tested this hypothesis among 107 heterosexual undergraduates, measuring selfdeception using the Self-Deceptive Enhancement scale and two phenotype markerbased measures. Following parental investment theory, we approximated mating success as rate of intercourse partners and partner social status. When controlling for covariates, we found that self-deception predicted intercourse-partner rate and partner status in females only. In males, self-deception did not predict mating success for either variable. These data represent a long-overdue test of Trivers’ hypothesis and provide an operational model to be refined for further research.

The selfish goal meets the selfish gene.

The connection between selfish genes and selfish goals is not merely metaphorical. Many goals that shape contemporary cognition and behavior are psychological products of evolutionarily fundamental motivational systems and thus are phenotypic manifestations of genes. An evolutionary perspective can add depth and nuance to our understanding of "selfish goals" and their implications for human cognition and behavior.

A selfish gene chastened: Tribolium castaneum Medea M 4 is silenced by a complementary gene

Maternal-effect dominant embryonic arrest (Medea) of Tribolium castaneum are autosomal factors that act maternally to cause the death of any progeny that do not inherit them. This selfish behavior is thought to result from a maternally expressed poison and zygotically expressed antidote. Medea factors and the hybrid incompatibility factor, H, have a negative interaction consistent with complementary genes of the Dobzhansky-Muller model for post-zygotic isolation. This negative interaction may result from H suppression of Medea zygotic antidote, leaving zygotes incompletely protected from maternal poison. I report here a test of the hypothesis that H also suppresses the Medea maternal poison. Viable F1 females were generated from a cross of Medea M4 strain males to H strain females. These females, heterozygous for both M4 and H, failed to express M4 maternal lethal activity when crossed to their male sibs. Transmission of non-M4 homologues from these females was confirmed using a dominant transgenic enhanced green fluorescent protein eye color marker, tightly linked in cis to M4. M4 beetles, lacking H, were selected from the F2 population. Female descendants of these clearly expressed M4 maternal lethal activity, indicating restoration of this activity after H was segregated away. I conclude that H, or a factor tightly linked to H, suppresses Medea M4 maternal poison.

The validity of Dawkins's selfish gene theory and the role of the unconscious in decision making.

Although the proposed Selfish Goal Theory constitutes a major theoretical tour de force for addressing the issue of inconsistencies in human actions and the role of motivational goals in behavior, as it is based on an unproven biological paradigm (Dawkins's selfish gene theory) and overemphasizes the role of unconscious processes in decision making, it provides a questionable model of the underlying psychological structure of human agency.

An appetite for wonder: the making of a scientist: a memoir

Born to parents who were enthusiastic naturalists, and linked through his wider family to a clutch of accomplished scientists, Richard Dawkins was bound to have biology in his genes. But what were the influences that shaped his life and intellectual development? And who inspired him to become the pioneering scientist and public thinker now famous (and infamous to some) around the world? In An Appetite for Wonder we join him on a personal journey back to an enchanting childhood in colonial Africa. There the exotic natural world was his constant companion. Boarding school in England aged 8, and later, public school at Oundle introduce him, and the reader, to strange rules and eccentric school masters vividly described with both humorous affection and some reservation. An initial fervent attachment to Church of England religion soon gives way to disaffection and, later, teenage rebellion. Early signs of a preference for music, poetry and reading over practical matters become apparent as he recalls the opportunities that entered his small world. Oxford, however, is the catalyst to his life. Vigorous debate in the dynamic Zoology Department unleashes his innate intellectual curiosity; and inspirational mentors together with his own creative thinking ignite the spark that results in his radical and new vision of Darwinism, The Selfish Gene. From innocent child to charismatic world-famous scientist, Richard Dawkins paints a colourful, richly-textured canvas of his early life. Honest self-reflection and witty anecdote are interspersed with touching reminiscences of his best-loved family and friends, literature, poetry and songs. We are finally able to understand the private influences that shaped the public man who more than anyone else in his generation explained our own origins.

Beyond Extended Phenotype: Evolution of Extended Identity in Order to Reconcile Study of Humanity with Biological Evolution

The question: “How much of biological evolution based theories, as they are understood presently, apply to human behaviour?” is highly controversial and perhaps highly politicized as well. The inference that human beings are evolutionarily programmed to have urges toward aggression, rape, murder, adultery, genocide and so on is a politically rejected idea within the social sciences. To be politically correct those who use evolutionary framework do claim that people can learn or have capacity for self restraint. However it is not clearly understood, how such restraint can possibly evolve within the evolutionary framework. This paper argues that the missing link that explains such behavior is the concept of extended identity. How extended identity can evolve, following the framework of selfish gene, is explained by integrating theories related to selfish gene, institutional analysis, information economics and social capital literature. Archaeological evidence from evolutionary cognition is also used to show that such evolution could happen 4 million years ago (MYA).