It must be admitted that sociobiologists sometimes say other things which are inconsistent with statements like the ones I have just quoted. Dawkins, for example, sometimes protests that he does not at all believe that genes are 'conscious, purposeful agents . But these disclaimers are in vain. It is in Richard Dawkins book, The Extended Phenotype, that the apotheosis of genes has been carried furthest. Genes are here represented as manipulating, in their own interest, not only the bodies and behaviour of the organisms in which they sit, but just about everything under the sun.
Genes manipulate external objects.
For example, a certain kind of cuckoo deposits its egg among the eggs laid by a reed-warbler. Just as maternity implies parenthood but not conversely, so manipulation implies causal influence but not conversely. The moon causally influences the tides, but it cannot manipulate them. Even if causal influence results in some advantage to the influencing agent, that is still not enough to constitute manipulation. To constitute manipulation, there must be the element of intended purposeful causal influence.