page_title: The Extended Phenotype
section_title: Genes synthesize only proteins
hierarchical_section_title: The Extended Phenotype / Summary / Genes synthesize only proteins
caption_attribution_description: Photo taken and supplied by Brian Voon Yee Yap. Cathedral Termite Mounds in the Northern Territory.
context_page_description: The Extended Phenotype is a 1982 book by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author introduced a biological concept of the same name. The main idea is that phenotype should not be limited to biological processes such as protein biosynthesis or tissue growth, but extended to include all effects that a gene has on its environment, inside or outside the body of the individual organism.
  Dawkins considers The Extended Phenotype to be a sequel to The Selfish Gene aimed at professional biologists, and as his principal contribution to evolutionary theory.
context_section_description: Dawkins argues that the only thing that genes control directly is the synthesis of proteins. He points to the arbitrariness of restricting the idea of the phenotype to apply only to the phenotypic expression of an organism's genes in its own body. Dawkins develops this idea by pointing to the effect that a gene may have on an organism's environment through that organism's behaviour.
caption: A cathedral termite mound – a small animal with a large extended phenotype
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