Comment by tor825gl
7 hours ago
> Could you recall a quote or chapter from the book that bolsters your point?
Yes, the second word of the title.
7 hours ago
> Could you recall a quote or chapter from the book that bolsters your point?
Yes, the second word of the title.
Yeah, that's not really good enough, by the author's own admission:
From wikipedia: 'In the foreword to the book's 30th-anniversary edition, Dawkins said he "can readily see that [the book's title] might give an inadequate impression of its contents" and in retrospect wishes he had taken Tom Maschler's advice and titled it The Immortal Gene.[2] He laments that “Too many people read it by title only.”' [0]
Furthermore, your concept that genes should be thought of as having a plan is just in stark contradiction with the Darwinian conception of natural selection, which Dawkins was largely a champion of.
My own recollection was that he described how genes readily had the appearance of acting in their own best interest, but he fell short of advocating that modeling them as having intention is a useful contrivance. Evolution does not have any sense for the future, there is no planning evolved, and Dawkins understands that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
> he fell short of advocating that modeling them as having intention is a useful contrivance
Sorry, I remember differently. That "modelling them as having intention is a useful contrivance" is exactly the central argument of the book.
People misread the title by assuming that he was arguing that they actually did have intention.
That's fine, all I'm saying is that if genes don't actually have intention, then the utility of modeling them as though they do must be strictly limited, if not an outright liability in some contexts. Use the heuristic at your own risk, but don't sell it as gospel truth.
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