Talk:Gene-centered view of evolution

message: 'A Defence'? 'Conclusion'? Is there a more Wiki-appropriate title for these? Ziggurat 23:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subtitles 

message: This has a slightly nutbar flavour to it.  It refers to ligitimate issues (some/most biologists would call it a tempest in a tea cup, others would call it a controversy) but the article really doesn't do justice to the issues and has a detectable POV creationist/ID slant.  eg the following sentences are really indefensible characterizations:
# "Adaptation refers to those phenotypic traits of living systems characterized by their improbable functional organization"
# "The human hand, the veins' valves, the vertebrate eye, the hemoglobin molecule, the pony fish's glow, parental investment and kin altruism are notorious examples of adaptation"
The article really doesn't even attempt to address the whole "bean-bag genetics" / "levels of selection" topic, but seems to aim to use the vague outline of the topic to launch into half-baked musings on other topics. Pete.Hurd 18:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: Is there any reason why this entry is somewhat incorrectly called gene-centered while the text (correctly) talks about the gene-centric view? - Samsara 14:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, how about calling the entry simply gene-centric view? The title is somewhat unwieldy, and you're unlikely to find a gene-centric view in any other discipline! - Samsara 17:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Tis rather clumsy either way I'd say... if I can prove it is in print do you think we should go back to Williams revolution? (see Talk:Richard_Dawkins Mikkerpikker 19:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, no problem at all. In fact, the changes have all been reverted already. - Samsara 23:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gene-centr''ic'' view

message: Yes, gene-environment interaction is a desperately needed article, perhaps this and a fix-up of heritability (also desperately needed) would be the same task, an exposition on shared vs. unique environmental variance etc.  Such a fix would make a nice hammer to pound down the sticking-up nail that is the Nature versus nurture page. Pete.Hurd 15:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It turns out that such an article does exist, but it is unexpectedly capitalised: Gene-Environment Interaction. - Samsara 15:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gene by environment interaction

message: Please see my comments on Talk:Unit of selection regarding a potential merger with/split of that page.
Safay 01:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Unit of selection]]

message: The narrative is strangely ahistorical. It characterizes some early discoveries as being related to "genes" when the term and concept did not yet then exist, mixes up the order of things (i.e. Crick appears before Fisher), somewhat misattributes things (Mendel's fame is not the idea of particulate heredity—Galton and others had proposed this previously—but in describing the dominant/recessive behavior and the various laws), and is very vague at certain parts (i.e. saying that discoveries in inheritance happened "a few decades" after Darwin's Origin—in fact it was many decades later that most of that got worked out, after Darwin's death). It would be nice if someone could go over this and made the order more clear; as it is it would be very misleading if you tried to use this as an actual guide to the history of this concept. --Fastfission 19:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Oddly ahistorical

message: I think the first 3 sections (Improbable functional organization, Evolution by natural selection, Discoveries in heredity) should be removed as they are essentially off topic. Does anyone else agree? — Axel147 23:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Stripping out sections!

message: The article's first section bore no real relevence to the focus of the rest of the article, and had a non-neutral point of view. In fact, it looked like someone just took some of the cliché, "it seems like X might be true, therefore X is true, and we shouldn't apply the scientific method to attempt to prove or disprove X," pro-ID arguments, peppered them with out-of-context attributions to Dawkins, and stuck them at the top of the article so unsuspecting visitors would be misled. That's lame. The "this is off-topic" tag serves no real purpose, so I simply deleted the section. It couldn't be cleaned up, because the section should never have been in the article in the first place.</rant> Sean Parmelee 04:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: Without a section describing the criticisms of this view, this article will never be complete. [Sorry - I have no userID to leave!] 82.9.246.216 08:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Balance 

message: I've just come across the article and I think it needs a lot of work. My main concerns are:
# The science reads like a time-warp from the 1970s.  It turns out that things are a great deal more complicated than that, and almost every scientific statement made is an approximation with very important exceptions. (To give an extreme example, viruses work completely differently) The articles it references are much more up to date.  In particular the notion that there is a simple relation between a gene and "its" phenotypical effect turns out to be gravely mistaken.  Phenotypical effects come from complex networks of genes in many combinations, acting on many other complex networks.
# There are essentially two versions of "selfish gene" theory.  The weak version is that "it is often useful to think about evolution from a 'selfish gene' perspective."  Most people would agree with this, although as the complexities of genes and genetic networks become more evident the value of this approach becomes less clear - and real Evolutionary Dynamics is done at the level of types in populations, not genes.  The strong version, that "the only valid way of thinking about evolution is from a 'selfish gene' perspective" is scientifically false (lots of good evolutionary science is done from other perspectives) and probably not held by any leading working biologists.
# The statement of the theory in the article is confused and not too well sourced. I have tried to straighten some of this out, but becasue I don't really support the theory It'd be better if someone else did. NBeale 21:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unconfusing and modernising this article 

message: Yes *Spark* is right I deleted large sections so should take it to talk. My view is that the article is cumbersome as it is. It has to assume the reader has basic understanding of natural selection, genes, heredity etc. I suggest the first two sections are removed (and maybe condensed into a historic background sections later in the article) — Axel147 15:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Restructuring 

message: How much popularity does this view hold among evolutionary scientists as compared to other models?  The article should make clear if it is the strongest hypothesis right now or if another model is favored instead.--Urthogie 07:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All we can do is offer educated guesses (which offers little value). From my reading, the "gene centered view," in the moderated form—as understood today by Maynard Smith, Dawkins, and to some measure by G. C. Williams—is a strong minority. It all really depends on who you read, what journals, what books, and what sub-disciplines, and so forth. There's a lot of sample bias going on when people assert that their particular side has won the majority. Very few people have a good feel for the entire literature. In fact, one might say nobody really does. Each field must speak for itself on this issue. There has, however, been a somewhat limited consensuses on the definitions being used, and our basic understanding of the problem (genes replicate, organisms are targeted, populations evolve, etc., but even here there is much room for debate. And when multiple levels of selection interact, there is a great difficulty in determining how they interrelate, and to what degree. Williams divides the problem into two separate spheres: that of information and that of the physical medium. Mayr, Gould, and others, argue for hierarchal levels—but widely disagree on its typology and agency. What needs to be done—in my passionate opinion—is scientific polling of the scientific community. There is potentially so much value to be gained from this, not only for public policy issues, but for its obvious utility for the history of science (or science of history, as Michael Shermer calls it). I do not understand why this is not done with any rigor or frequency. And I wish some capable historian would take up the challenge. Best, Miguel Chavez 20:09, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From Darwin to a few decades ago, most people did not know how genetics worked. All they could observe were phenotypes. Now we know better. We know how each gene affects dozens if not hundreds of phenotypes. Ultimately it is the gene that is selected, because that is what is immortally cloned. Phenotypes are cloned; they are created by complex interactions between genes. Evolution selects genes that are selfish and cooperative at the same time, because genes need to be selfish in order to propagate at the expense of its rivals (actually alleles), but it also needs to be cooperative with other genes in the same organism in order that it be selected via phenotypes created by cooperation. Fred Hsu (talk) 02:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Question

message: I gave it a B class, though it needs a longer lead and inline citations. Richard001 22:00, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment

message: I looked in the section concerning challenges to the selfish gene theory for reference to this issue, but the challenges section seemed to focus primarily on the statements of individuals.
Is anyone here familiar with tit-for-tat theory, and could that be included in the challenges section (or as separate challenges, perhaps differentiating between positions of authority and scientific claims)? I'm not sure how valid the theory is, but the implications would cast into doubt the universal nature of the selfish gene, no? -EarthRise33 23:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tit-for-tat

message: As I read it now there is no mention left about 'replicators' in the main article (except for a source reference to Dawkins, R. (1982) that is of no use for the current article). Since there is obviously no article about 'replicators' (neither the keyword nor the relevant concept are even present in Evolution or Evolution of sexual reproduction), I suggest to remove the redirection "Replicator (evolution unit)" and leave it undefined (red). Or better yet, somebody take a moment to write a complement about these structures (possibly using said deleted material as starting point) into Evolution or Evolution of sexual reproduction, or even a new article. Please - Thanks !<BR>(try as exemplary material : Researchers move one step further towards understanding how life evolved last's month article that led me here !)<BR>Zigomar7 (talk) 17:42, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: removal of the redirection

message: The image of Richard Dawkins book fails to meet Non-free use content criteria #8.
It does not promote significant understanding of the topic at hand. (How does a image of a book cover - especially one that looks like a child's drawing - give understanding on evolutionary theory?) Neither would its removal be any detriment to understanding this topic.
Yes the book is important to this theory, but an image of its cover is not. Please consider removing this cover to comply with Wikipedia's guidelines on non-free content.
Plenty of non-free images could be created and used to assist in illustration of this article.--ZayZayEM (talk) 02:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-free image fair use rationale 

message: The image :Image:The Selfish Gene3.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here.  In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page.  Please check
:* That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
:* That this article is linked to from the image description page.
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --08:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:The Selfish Gene3.jpg

message: There is discussion at Four causes relevant to this article. It is being claimed that "Most modern theories of evolution are unabashedly teleological", and it is being argued that the article should remove references to modern science not being teleological and say the opposite. Comments please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:07, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The statement begins with weasel words, and contains no arguments, just an unfounded assertion. Thus, I don't see any reason to take it seriously. - Soulkeeper (talk) 18:51, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Four causes article: is modern science teleological or does it at least attempt the opposite? 

message: At present, the section on the Price Equation doesn't state if the equation takes a side in the gene-centered vs organism-centered debate. So it probably has no place in this article. Thoughts? David.hillshafer (talk) 00:43, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevance of the Price Equation? 

message: this says in the lead:"The gene-centered view of evolution is a synthesis of the theory of evolution by natural selection, the particulate inheritance theory, and the Lamarckism (the non-transmission of acquired characters).[citation needed]". while wikiarticle fir Lamarckism clearlysays opposie: L. is a theory of transmissionability of acquired caracters. so this needs deconflicting.  i ve read the selfish gene quite long ago, so i might not be able to recall all the nuances of its reasoning, therefore i dont want to just delete the seemingly misplaced "non" from "the non-transmission",  but the quoted sentence doesnt seem to be clear enough. i wish an editor with some grip on the topic could see to it, or else i 'd have to correct it in a few days.80.98.114.70 (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing this out. I found when this edit was made, last August, here is the change. As you can see it used to be that the wikilink to Lamarckism had the display text of "non transmission of acquired characters", he split it up so that the wikilink was separate from the latter phrase, but it ended up with the current awkward - and incorrect - wording. I'm putting it back. --Krelnik (talk) 12:41, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lamarckism = non-transmission?? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Has any writer in this field tackled the topic of suicide and other self-destructive behaviors? Ritualistic murder/suicide, that kind of thing?50.194.115.156 (talk) 22:47, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't a discussion forum. However, this paper might get you started ... The Causal Role of Consciousness: A Conceptual Addendum to Human Evolutionary Psychology (you should be able to at least see the abstract and the author contact details). Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 09:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suicide? 

message: The section on criticisms of the Selfish gene theory does jump around from talking about Ernst Mayr to talking about Steven Jay Gould a bit. Vorbee (talk) 17:52, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just re-read it, and it's pretty good, given that it's reporting a (furious) and long-running argument, at summarizing the key points on both sides. They were, after all, each trying to rebut the other side's arguments. Much worse is that other chunks of the article are uncited. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:59, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Gould and Mayr

message: At the opening of his 5th chapter "The Active Germ-line Replicator" (p.81)Dawkins, R. 1982. The Extended Phenotype. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. ISBN 978-0-19-288051-2., R. Dawkins cites Benzer (1957) Benzer, S. 1957. The elementary units of heredity. In A symposium on the Chemical Basis of Heredity. p. 70-93. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press and himself (1978) explaining that there are 'genes' refer to 4 different concepts or that it can be split in 4 different units:
 1. Muton: unit of mutational change
 2. Recon: unit of recombination (crossing over)
 3. Cistron: unit of polypeptide chain production (functional unit)
 4. Optimon or selecton: unit of natural selection (selecton was apparently coined by E. Mayr, as quoted in Dawkins 1982)
This seems appropriate to discuss and include some of the terms here. 
Beausoleilmo (talk) 22:27, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Optimon (Selecton), Cistron, muton and recon