A commentary on Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene

The year 2007 will mark the 31st anniversary ever since the inception of Richard Dawkins thought-provoking book The Selfish Gene in 1976...

Allow me to provide a brief synopsis of Dawkins' work. Basically, he painted a fatalistic viewpoint (in my honest opinion) that the purpose of genes' existence is to get passed on to the next generation, with the organism seen as a mere vehicle, to allow the genes to replicate and get passed on to the organism's offspring. The organism is seen as a means to an end, the persistence of the gene.

For someone from the standpoint of a complexity theorist, I would like to voice out a few disagreements with Richard Dawkin's work. Perhaps Dawkins can be forgiven since complexity theories might be in their developmental stages during the time when the book was written.

In complexity theory, there is a concept of emergence. Basically, simple agents obeying simple rules interact with each other, resulting in the creation of a complex entity with properties that somehow emerges, hence we call them emergent properties, which are not the properties of the constituent simple agents. Thus, emergent phenomenon is seen as the consequence of interacting simple agents.

Allow me to give an apt illustration. A mathematician by the name of John Conway invented a game whereby cells are allowed to proliferate or die in a grid. The rules with which each cellular agent follows is simple: 1) A living cell will remain alive only if it has two or three living neighbours. It dies from exposure or loneliness if it has less than two neighbours, and from overcrowding if it has more than three neighbours. 2) A dead (or vacant) cell can come alive if it is surrounded be exactly three live cells. (One can think of this as reproduction). Thus, depending on the initial patterns of cells at Time Zero, different types of patterns will be obtained when the game begins. Types of patterns obtained include breeding or oscillating patterns. This Game of Life application is also known as cellular automata.

What has this got to do with genes and evolution? Basically a gene can be seen as a simple agent. It is required to obey simple rules. 1) Replicate itself. 2) Express a protein product. The building blocks of life is made up of protein, nucleic acids (genes and RNA), lipids and carbohydrates. Proteins obey their own simple rules. 1) React with substrates. It is the interaction of these building blocks, which gives rise to an emergent phenomenon, the live cell. The property of the cell, or what we call emergent property is different from the simple agents that make it up. Cells can phagocytose, contort their stucture in all shapes and sizes, divide, etc, but do the simple agents that make up the cell possess such properties? Take the brain for example. Emotions, intelligence, information processing, etc, are all hallmarks of the human brain, but can such hallmarks be attributed to the simple agents that make up the brain, the neurons?

Yet the fact remains that simple agents have to continue obeying the rules cast in stone. It will be premature to bring in rhetorics and attribute a quality, be it positive or negative from Dawkin's selfish perspective to these simple agents. To me, the gene is merely doing the job it sets out to do. The summation of different genes interacting together, coupled with the building blocks of biological life such as protein, lipids and carbohydrates, gives rise to the emergent phenomenon - LIFE. Imagine one day if the gene wants to be less "selfish" and stops replicating. Our immune system will start to fail if our immune cells fail to divide. The genes that encode the precious protective antibodies will not be passed on to daughter cells, and DEATH will be the final verdict.

Unlike Richard Dawkins, I see the gene as it is, merely obeying the rules of Nature. Forget about the positive or negative attributes (selfishness). Another difference is that I see LIFE not as a vehicle for genes to be passed on, but rather an emergent phenomenon that is the consequence of the many replicating cum transcribing genes interacting with each other and performing in perfect concerto with lipids, proteins and carbohydrates, the other composers within the orchestra of LIFE. The perpetual symphony of LIFE is not only about one selfish player, but the rhythmic harmony of the perpetuating genes, essential biomolecules, and of course, the friendly Earth environment.


Citations
1) Richard Dawkins. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 2006 (30th Anniversary edition)

2) Game of Life applet. http://www.collidoscope.com/cgolve/patternrakesandbreeders.html