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The more academic version of Dawkins' theory is his book The Extended Phenotype. It paints a picture of genes whose phenotypes may act beyond the "boundaries" of the organisms they belong to. Say, termite mounds are "made" by termite genes... or if Dawkins will allow me, perhaps by genes of both termites and funghi Termitomyces, so you may be talking of a new  "organic" unit - termite mound, whose genes are distributed across bodies of two distinct organisms. If you insist on only one (groop of) controlling genes, you stumble upon fascinating questions like: do termites cultivate the funghi, or other way around?

The competative interpretation is funnily interesting - you might probably say that a certain gene of George W controls all the planet. But the context/playground of the genes "battle" becomes so rich and incidental that it makes much more sense to talk a group of genes (and not only from the Bush family) cooperating in competition against other group of genes (say, "liberal" genes) - hence you have very sensible higher levels of selection.

by das monde on Mon May 28th, 2007 at 08:07:53 AM EST
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I believe Dawkins answer to those other levels of selection is Memes.
by Torres on Mon May 28th, 2007 at 08:13:20 AM EST
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Say, termite mounds are "made" by termite genes...

Why the dots?

you might probably say that a certain gene of George W controls all the planet.

I may be mistaken, but this "controls" seems to imply a mistaken idea of what genes do -- the simplistic but widespread idea of genetic determination. But genes don't miraculously 'control' anything, they just have an effect under certain circumstances (circumstances which include both other genes and 'environmental factors'). No gene determines foot size, for example -- with the right diet, you grow much larger (not to mention having zero-sized feet if you cut off your leg in an accident).

it makes much more sense to talk a group of genes ... cooperating in competition against other group of genes

That makes sense only if the occurence of competing variants of the various genes in the group are correlated. There may be some correlation between some gene variants due to compatibilites, but not for the entire genome [varation] of most sexually reproducing species, or even any groups of genes you pick in their genome.

I note though that with Dawkins's original loose definition of 'gene', higher-level selection is a non-issue: what we'd view as separate genes with strongly correlated variants (based on the now accepted geneticist definition of gene) would be one gene in his treatment in those 20-30-years-old books.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon May 28th, 2007 at 09:19:24 AM EST
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