CH. 1-The Selfish Gene

well culture is in our genes in the sense that the potential of it is present. it's as much in our genes as anger or anything else ie our genes lay out a biological body of potentiality and as such art, music and ethics are not things that can go against our genes but rather are as much an expression of them as "anger", "sexuality" or anyother behaviour that some people have a tendency to isolate and try and pin on genes.

I agree the fact that our brains are big and complicated enough to accommodate 'culture' is a result of our genes. What I mean by culture being able to 'go against our genes' is that the things that we learn from the abilities that our big brains allow us to have (such as the ability to be educated far beyond the levels of our non-human ancestors) may cause us to behave in ways which are contrary to our lower level 'behavioural instincts'. For example, if you are watching a scary horror film, your behavioural instincts may be pumping adrenaline and telling you to run away from the scary thing which you can see on the screen. However, the higher functions of your brain (which are, as you say, also a product of your genes) will usually override this urge, and you will stay put. So your culture (or education) has gone against your genetic instincts.

Another example might be if you thought someone else's girlfriend was fit, and really wanted to try it on with her. Your genetic instincts would tell you to do so, but you might (or might not) resist this urge due to your cultural conditioning telling you that this would be out of order. If you did resist this urge, then your cultural conditioning is clearly 'going against' your genes on some level.

I think this type of cultural, reasoned response is happening at a higher and more evolved level than, to use your examples, anger or sexuality, and can in fact suppress (or be overwhelmed by) those more basic evolutionary instincts. I don't think that to say this is to to 'reinvent a reactionary binary between matter and conciousness' by which I presume you mean a kind of religious sense of our consciousness being somehow supernatural or the result of having a soul, but is merely to recognise that our brains have evolved to a level that we no longer have to rely on 'animal instincts' but that these instincts are still present within us and sometimes come into conflict with our rationality.

So I guess what I am saying is that our brains have evolved an amazing capacity for learning - far more than any other animal. Any behaviour we engage in as a result of that learning is only indirectly a result of our genes - we don't have genes 'for' playing music, but we do have genes 'for' having a big enough brain to aquire the ability to play music. We don't have genes 'for' not running away from scary movies or not cracking on to someone else's girlfriend but we do have genes 'for' having a big enough brain to absorb the rational/cultural/ethical norms necessary for us to make those decisions. And those decisions can go against our more basic behavioural genes.

see this is the problem, your genes don't tell you to do fuck all, least not in the manner your asserting. Why do you relate your genes to your most base instincts but not to your higher brain, why are your genes just understood on a hormonal level, how can your hormones and the triggers for them be seperated from the environmnet, and isn;t that environmnet one of social relations and culture. your urge to fuck your mates girlfriend is not some primordial drive but rather bound up in a social world.

Why is there this conflation with genetics with our most "base" drives and aren;t our base drives actually just based on a reactionary binary between nature and culture, a binary that has it's roots in violent racism, which present the "savage" as being closer to nature and the good white christian as having rose above that being created in the image of god.

Now that I have had some quiet time to consider the comments to my posts, I want to express some regret.

My first regret is that not a single point took up the scientific points I made, the specifics of biology. Rather, there was a counter-attack with “Oh, so you don't think that genes have anything to do with behaviour?” and “God, the only thing worse than a genetic determinist is a behaviourist.” and such like. I am indeed paraphrasing, mostly because I really don't like the new forum on a technical level and I hate pulling text from it.

I posed the idea that the fundamental presentation of genes as a map, a blue print or as a program was incorrect. This was Devrim's precise language. On the simple level of the biological organism, development is not mono-causal, it is at least tri-fold: genes, environment, developmental noise. I raised the fact that as a result, a living thing with the exact same genes under different environmental conditions or due to difference in developmental noise might develop very differently. Not only that, I gave one example of chimpanzees with no discernible genetic differences who developed marked behavioural differences and there are examples from the scientific literature of differences of environment and random variations leading to living things with the same genetic makeup developing biologically, purely physiologically, in a very different ways.

As a result, I argued that genes do not act like a map or a blue print or a program. Rather, genes interact and express themselves in a dynamic relationship with their own processes or guide, but that environmental and random ways that the genetic processes unfold lead to minor and major variations, such as a level of manual coordination.

I think that genes are responsible for Beethoven being human, but they have nothing to do with his ability to play the music he played beyond that (opposable thumbs, upright posture, brain structure, etc. as definite predicates), whereas developmental noise and a specific environment (nutrition, education, exposure to music of a specific kind, etc) all would have had a profound effect on his sense of what music was, what it meant to him and even quite probably the manual dexterity necessary to play what he played and the ear to appreciate and develop it. There is no gene for classical music or likely even for music. We have created that as human beings, in its magnificent variety, and happily there is nothing unscientific about that, magnifico.

But I will take it further. There is no gene for scratching an itch, a very, very basic, animalistic behaviour. Rather, we have skin that allows for itching to be possible, and irritating. We also happen to have some means to scratch the itch: hands on long arms (genetically determined indeed!) We also have other people who can do that, which is a social behaviour. But I don't need to have a genetic argument for why it happens. I can explain it just fine using neurobiology and physiology (whose basic structure is no doubt genetically mapped), but the genes no longer enter into the equation once I have recourse to the neurological and physiological explantion. Why in the nine hells would I want to have a genetic explanation when it adds nothing but a metaphysical exoskeleton?

Another part of my argument is that within biology itself, developmental biology focuses on the gene because developmental biology is driven my a notion of well, development: the tendency of these creatures towards a uniform, directional progression through stages of life. The other tendency in this, common to the population geneticists, have sought to grapple with the presence of variation and so tend to focus on the elements that allow for variation.

Genes frankly carry on mostly what allows for a certain stability. Major genetic variations, mutations, are often deadly and only one in very, very many is productive of a new species or transformation of that sort, and it usually involves a great degree of physical isolation from the parent population, and other factors.

This vision of the relation of simply biological development is already at odds with the presentation by Dawkins. He wants to pose “hard determinism” but that is his straw man, one he attributes to his critics. And you buy it. I don't. The issue is the ability to grasp a certain uniformity alongside a tremendous capacity for variation and the genes are simply not the site of variation. Nor are they some mechanism that controls us, and I am afraid that it is Dawkins who referred to us as “lumbering robots” and who repeatedly sees us as agents of that structuring principle: the genes. In this sense, when Pingtao brings up structures, I see a certain line of symmetry between structuralism, with its mental structures of which we are agents, or Marxist structuralism pace Althusser where we are agents of social structures, and human beings as agents of genes.

I am also saddened that Devrim could not see that my comment re: consciousness and action was not directed at treating animals as conscious, as I had argued against such a treatment for quite a bit, but that it was specifically aimed at the treatment of human consciousness, and I am saddened because if he had thought about it for one moment, it would be self-evident that the only consciousness we can have any meaningful discussion of is the one we share: human consciousness. Your comment was so clearly not addressed to mine that it seemed completely out of touch. Unless you are of course confused since you lumped humans and animals together in a sentence with consciousness, with no noticeable differentiation, not I.

So while I was indeed unnecessarily belligerent, I found your responses addressed almost nothing and retreated into the pat defenses made by Dawkins.

But as with my intent on variation rather than development, so I will ask time and again why Dawkins has to excuse himself so much and tell us so often what he does not mean when he keeps saying these things that seem to mean what people take them to mean? Or is it those horrible Marxist professors trying to tear them down with their ideological agenda against the “pure science” of these good, little, “purely objective and scientific” Ivy League, upper class liberals?

Belligerent I may have been, but you answered not a single point I raised instead retreating into Dawkins' game of “play the victim of disingenuous criticism” and responded to specific scientific points with generalizations.

I have taken most of the belligerent out, at least the unjustified parts, and ask you to address the substantive criticisms herein clarified instead of feeling unhappy about my belligerence.

And I have read the responses. Pardon me if I remain unconvinced from a couple of decades of reading Dawkins.

Chris

reply to revol:-

Of course it is

Sexuality, fear, anger and other such 'base instincts' clearly are a result of our genes, are you seriously saying that the urge to reproduce has nothing to do with the fact that this is how our genes have been replicated for millions of years?

Conversely, the ability to choose not to reproduce is clearly not a direct result of genetic selection, as it will very rarely be of benefit to the reproductive success of any gene which might predispose such behaviour.

I don't see how this has anything to do with racism - so called 'savages' are in any way that matters genetically identical to 'good white christians' and their societies have as much of a culture as ours does - to say that human behviour operates on different levels in no way implies that some human races are closer to being animals than others

Chris the reason we are not addressing your points is that we pretty much agree with them. A good example of this is the discussion I am having with revol at the same time as you made that post, in which I am arguing exactly this!-

yet you are directing the point at me as if you expect me to disagree with it

This is an extreme example in that you are attacking me by making the exact point I myself raised in my previous post, but you are treating Dawkins, Devrim, Pingtao and xConorx in the same way - by attributing genetic determinist positions to them which they do not hold.

Where we disagree is in our interpretation of Dawkins. How you can interpret 'the selfish gene' to be some kind of bible of genetic determinism is beyond me, as I have explained this debate is deliberately not addressed within the book, and where Dawkins does address it elsewhere he pretty much agrees with your position.

Your quote about 'lumbering robots' is taken totally out of context, if you read the chapter you will see that he is not saying that we are the gene's robots in the sense that they control us, rather he is saying that they created us as a human might create a robot - it is no different from your acknowledging that genes created Beethoven. Your quotes from what Devrim wrote are misinterpreted in a similar way.

In terms of anything other than your interpretation of Dawkins I see no reason to disagree with you now that you have made your position clear - that's why I am not raising any of your scientific arguments. Are you sure you have read his actual books, rather than just selected quotations and second-hand accounts?

Er, I would say, that we have big enough brains to... hunt well in groups - or whatever the brain was selected to do. That is the brains function and nothing more. Regarding fucking your friend's girlfriend, iirc, you can only say that this is because of our genes, if a gene was selected to do so. So, if however many thousands of years ago, a gene that expressed this was favoured by natural selection. Sounds possible, I suppose, but...

I think your misunderstanding the level at which genes work. There is no gene for sexual desire, there is no gene for sexual reproduction, as Redtwister has pointed out, there are a series of interconnected genes that allow us to have hormones, glands, nerve endings, neuro connectors and everything else used in sex, that in turn allows us to enjoy sex. We do not have sex for our genes, our genes have no fucking desire, no aim, no motives.

We can only understand our behaviour as being caused by our genes in a very general totalised manner, we can't just go around spliitng certain desires into "base" instincts, and others into "cultured", the two are completely intwined. If we are to say sexual desire is caused by our genes, then we must accept that our enjoyment of music is as well. Afterall genes do not cause us sexual enjoyment or desire anymore than they do lead me to listen to Nailbomb. Rather our genes give us the potential for sexual desire, in our genitialia, nerve endings, our large brains (which least it be said are the main sexual organ). Likewise we can enjoy music because our genes have given us ears and brains.

That is why the brain evolved to be as big and as capable of learning as it is. But that process allows it to do lots of other things, such as play music. I guess I'd describe these as side-effects, not things that have been selected for in and of themselves. This is why I say they are only indirectly a result of our genes.

Why are people arguing that wanting to fuck might not have any more of a genetic basis than playing music, hunting in groups or whatever? Surely the desire to fuck above all else will have been selected for by evolution since we were worms or something?

I'm aware that we are getting away from the chapter again. Apologies. Someone please reply to my previous on-topic posts

see your first problem is that you are positing conscious decision making on evolution. We have large brains, that allowed us to hunt in groups and hence helped the survival of the genes that build big brains. Our genes didn't sit down and plan big brains cause they reckoned it would be smart. So infact our whole fucking existance is a side affect. Humans didn;t have to happen, plenty of animals have existed for millions of years without developing big brains or even sexual desire.

Sorry, I may have typed the wrong thing. We have genes to be able hunt in groups. However, I don't think it can be said that we have genes for a big brain.

I dunno

Double post

Didn't see your last post before my last one revol.

I realise that no evolutionary adaptation is caused by only one gene, rather they are all interacting to produce instincts just as much as there is no single gene that produces your eye or hand. To talk about a gene 'for' something is a simplification for the sake of argument, which is why I keep putting it in inverted commas.

There is clearly a genetic influence on some behaviours. All species which reproduce sexually have a great urge to reproduce. This is not because their genes are somehow conscious or 'selfish' and consciously want to replicate themselves as much as possible, rather it is the ones that cause the body they are in to behave as if this was their aim which become most numerous in the gene pool. So when Dawkins talks about 'the selfish gene' he is using a metaphor - he doesn't actually believe that genes are selfish, rather that natural selection causes them to behave as if they were. Incidentally the chapter that we are currently supposed to be discussing illustrates this point extremely well.

Your body does not just give you genitalia and hope that you figure out what to do with them. Neither does it just give you a mouth and digestive system and hope that you will decide to eat something at some point. Genes within your body which cause you to have a desire to fuck and eat have been very beneficial to all of your ancestors, which is why every single one of them for millions of years has had at least one child before it died. Their contemporaries who had less of a sex drive were more likely to die before they got round to having sex, and so genes for this type of behaviour were not passed on - this is why genes for not wanting to have sex are very rare in nature, and why you are such a horny bastard .

The urge to listen to music, conversely, is highly unlikely to have been genetically selected for. It may bring some indirect evolutionary advantage, such as making you more likely to go to clubs (or their stone age equivalent) where you might meet girls, but generally it is far less likely to have evolved as an evolutionarily beneicial behaviour. I agree with redtwister that Beethoven's musical ability was not genetically selected for, but rather was a consequence of human culture and creativity. So what I mean by 'base instincts' (actually I think that was your term) are instincts which we have evolved because they assisted our ancestors' survival and reproduction (such as sexuality, hunger, fear of danger etc.) as opposed to 'higher' instincts which have little or no evolutionary function in and of themselves and so must be a side-effect of our learning abilities.

No you were right the first time, we have genes that give us a big brain, big brains help us hunt in groups, helping our survival and hence the gene for big brains is reproduced, it's a symbiotic relationship. There is no gene for hunting in groups, that would be absurd, genes don't work like that.

I entirely agree. We have big brains because genes for big brains survived better in the gene pool. Just as genes for wanting to fuck a lot survived better in the gene pool, because they replicated themselves more often by having more children. But genes for liking music would have little or no effect on their own ability to survive in the gene pool - so why would they evolve? Thus I conclude that they are likely to be an evolutionary side-effect of the big brain, not something that was favoured by natural selection in its own right. This is the whole point I am making.

Your not getting it.

There is no gene or genes for sexual desire per se, rather genes work on a mediated level, through organs, hormones and glands, these are what make it desirable to have sex, nerve endings, hormones, contractions etc. Therefore those genes which allow the construction of such organs will be succesful in replicating themselves, whilst the genes which give you say an extra hadn instead of a cock will not be too at staying in the gene pool.

There is no fucking gene for liking music or for fucking, there are genes which create organs that in turn make fucking pleasurable. This is my whole point genes do not have a direct relationship with our behaviour but one mediated through biology, which in turn is shaped and mediated through the social. Our big brains are as much side effects as anything else, sexual desire is a side effect afterall what's wrong with asexual reproduction?

You don't think a gene or group of genes which had the effect of making you want to have sex more often (or not to go near a cliff edge because you are afraid of heights) would make you more likely to reproduce?

Why do newborn babies cry when they are hungry - they haven't learned how to do this, they haven't been around long enough to learn anything. They do it because the instinct to do so is genetically programmed, something you seem to be arguing isn't possible.

Just to add, that, it may be important that genes don't just grow into brains etc. there is a complex feedback with the environment, I think.

they cry out because they experiance hunger! It is caused by organs that need feeding, it is caused by a displeasure that is felt in the body. Like when i'm thirsty.

My whole fucking point has been that genes only have effect through mediation, through the construction of organs, glands and hormones which in turn affect a creatures chance of reproduction.

When your sitting at home bored and fancy a wankm you do it cause it gives a pleasurable feeling (positive reinforcement), not cause a wee piece of DNA is bitching at your cock. If your cock hurts and has blisters on it you don't continue wanking cos your genetically programmed, you stop cos the reason you do it is enjoyment and if it isn't enjoyable you stop.

Obviously genes create organs that make fucking pleasureable. But you like to look at sexy women even if your cock isn't being stimulated. In a gene pool of people with equally good sexual organs the one with an added instinctual urge to have as much sex as possible will have an evolutionary advantage. Lots of animals engage in very complex behaviours that they are not capable of understanding, they do it out of pure instinct, in the same way as a newborn baby cries, or an adult jumps and becomes alert at a sudden, loud noise. These are instinctual behaviours.

Why do you think that in so many species mothers are very protective of their young, sometimes to the point of sacrificing their own lives? There is no organ that gains them pleasure when they do this, often quite the opposite, they experience pain, hunger or injury, so if you applied your logic of sexual organs to this behaviour it would be something they would learn not to do - yet still they do it. It is merely a behavioural instinct which has helped their genes to be passed on in the past and so has been selected for in the gene pool.

So how does the baby know that crying will help get rid of its hunger? By instinct. But you are saying that behavioural instincts are not possible.

I agree with this, so we may have been arguing at cross-purposes for a while

My whole fucking point is that many aspects of human behaviour have little or no effect on our chances of reproduction (such as liking music) and so are not a direct result of natural selection. Others, such as sexuality, have a big effect on our chances of reproduction, and so are selected for by evolution (via, as you say, glands, sexual organs, hormones, rewarding sensations etc.)

the instinct is mediated through fucking biology, hunger causes discomfort and discomfort is articulated through crying. Instinct is not seperate from our organs. The ability to feel pain evolved cos dunder nuts who didn't feel it got themselves into stupid situations more often than not, the ability to feel pain is dependent on having nerve endings, and the ability to cry is just as dependent on organs and hormones.

You seem to be missing my point, genes do not influence directly but through the Biological Organs they structure. Therefore someone with a high sex drive will be experiancing horniness because of hormones and no doubt environmental stimulai, afterall start starving and you'll soon how horny you are, it;s not some direct call from the genes.

hence sexual desire is not actually the desire to reproduce but rather the desire to reproduce stems from sexual desire, and hence why we are actually not going against our genes when we wear condoms etc.

So what natural selection pressures caused you to like music? There are lots of human behaviours that can't be accounted for in this way, and I see these as different from our more 'instinctual' behaviours (which are, as you say, caused by our genes via various bodily functions - did you think I was arguing that genes influenced our behviour by magic or something?)

yes, because natural selction has given us genes which have given us organs which allow us to enjoy music, to write music and to intepret music.

When is it going to sink in, natural selection is all one big side effect, there is no drive to it, no motive. Sexual desire is just a side effect, a side effect that helps in the replication of genes but non the less a side effect, and with the increasing rupture between reproduction and sex this is increasinly so.

Yes we are, in a way - sexual desire evolved because it made us more likely to reproduce, so when we have sex with a condom we are using our genes 'for' sexual desire for a purpose other than that which they evolved for.

And when we (well, not me, but some people ) decide to be celibate they are defying their genes. Their genes cause them to have sexual desire, but they choose to ignore this desire. When your mate Bobby was on hunger strike his body was telling him to eat but he chose not to for cultural/political reaons. Animals don't do this.

I think we are in part arguing about semantics.

yes but it's not going against our genes because our genes express themselves vis a vis biology and the big brain is just as much part of that biology, and hence the pleasure we get from our higher brain is as much real and in line with our genes as the pleasure we get from our other organs eg penis, vagina etc.

So you not think there is a useful distinction to be made between behaviours which have been directly selected for because they have been useful to our ancestors' survival and/or reproduction, and behaviours which have not been directly selected for in and of themselves such as a love of music? Of course the love of music is made possible by genes for big brains etc just as sexual desire is made possible by hormones, genitals etc. - the distinction I am making is that sexual drive was naturally selected for as a 'useful' adaptation in and of itself, whereas a love of music came about due to natural selection favouring something else (such as the ability to hunt well in groups.)