"As a whole generation of biologists has been indoctrinated to believe that selfish-gene theory is serious science, we should put the Dawkins-as-intellectual scenario to rest forever."

Possibly the greatest problem facing Richard Dawkins and the other selfish-gene theorists has been to explain the co-operation and altruism that dominate the life of so many species, and the answer they came up with is an audacious inversion of reality. Genes, they say, came up with the ingenious strategy (through a neutral and unconscious process of natural selection of course) of selfishly promoting unselfish behaviour among related organisms, near kin, so that in a family situation the survival chances of organisms housing shared genes would be enhanced. In other words, the unselfish co-operative behaviour that characterises life is for the theorists an illusion, selfishness cunningly disguised, individualism posing as collectivism. [1] They called this variety of natural selection kin selection and it’s become the bedrock of selfish gene theory. Acceptance of it is crucial for unless unselfish cooperation can be explained away, their selfish gene theory is in tatters. How much easier, logical, and in line with the evidence would it be to conclude that genes are basically co-operative and that what appear to be selfish survival tactics are an illusion produced by natural selection? (I think it was Einstein who said that if faced with a complicated solution to a problem and a simple one, go for the simple one.) Of course those disputing the selfish gene theory have an obligation to explain selfish behaviour, for according to Dawkins, “We are born selfish” [2] and “Selfish greed seems to characterise much of child behaviour.” [3] He could have added “And much adult behaviour” as well. But his quotes, despite being simplistic and misleading, actually lead us to a feature of human psychology that is of the greatest significance. A new-born child is not greedy, it’s helpless. It’s so dependent on its kinfolk and their attention is so focused on its needs, that it spends its first few months of life under the quite reasonable but mistaken belief that it is the centre of the universe. As the child matures intellectually it slowly overcomes this learned but futile attitude. Learned, not pre-programmed. The selfish greed Dawkins sees, is the child (or adult) still in the grip of the learned behaviour, behaviour moreover, that could well explain the origin of all those other anti-social emotions of hate, envy and so on.

Selfish kinship altruism is a minefield for the Dawkins camp, for they are forced to come up with explanations for numerous processes that don’t fit the model. Dawkins’ rather unconvincing explanation for our kindness to strangers for example, is that this is a “Darwinian mistake”, a useless (in Darwinian terms not his) misdirected extension of our feelings of kinship. [4] This is almost painful; a classic case of making the data fit the theory. Surely we can come up with a better explanation for altruism. Let’s start by examining kin selection, which undoubtedly plays a role in evolution, but which, when presented as being driven by individualism is a fantasy based on a falsehood. The simple reality is that we co-operate with others because we are social beings. We co-operate closely with kin because, well, they’re closest to us! (This really is kindergarten stuff, isn’t it?) Kin altruism can be more simply and believably explained, from a purely biological viewpoint only, as insurance for assistance at a time of future need, which rules out gene influence entirely.

Detailed information about the origin of life is not altogether conjectural; it’s still possible to speculate as to what took place and why. It’s likely that the first spark of life was a singular event, was not repeated. [5] If that’s the case, then all living things are related, for they have a common ancestor, this being confirmed by the presence of DNA in all organisms and the astounding level of genetic material shared among seemingly disparate species. (46% of your genes are found in yeast, 99% in chimps.) This makes a nonsense of kin selection based on selfishness, for when natural selection first kicked in (when the first organism reproduced) all organisms were closely related, there was no basis for differentiation. It’s still nonsense if we look at the situation eons later. High level co-operation with close kin is not mysterious; it has no hidden agenda, no devious ulterior motives. It’s no more than a perfectly natural consequence of varying levels of kinship. Take the example of a sinking ferry. The passengers that are strong swimmers will take their nearest and dearest to safety. If they have energy in reserve they will return to help others. This is not a “Darwinian mistake” as Dawkins would have us believe, for in the final analysis the other passengers are also close kin. Closer that is, than an owl or a toad, for these are also related to humans if we go back far enough. So we don’t need flimsy, unconvincing, manufactured absurdities to explain altruistic behaviour. There’s a perfectly plausible reason for our emotional ties to strangers; we’re all related!

It’s crucial that we examine the logical conclusions that flow from Dawkins’ view of the gene as being nothing more than a unit of information that has its perpetuation as its sole purpose and function. Dawkins refutes the charge that his gene is a conscious agent, as he should, yet his description of the gene as selfish leads inevitably to that conclusion. But continuing this line of thought, if Dawkins’ genes are not conscious, and are as he says no more than bits of information, then his proposition that genes have developed the organisms they inhabit as vehicles to facilitate their own immortality, is no more than science reduced to the level of animism, for he has projected onto mere building blocks, without justification, qualities that are the province of complex higher orders of life. His reductionist view of the gene also allows us to draw a striking analogy of the gene and its role as being the biological equivalent of the mission statement in the commercial world. Just as successful genes continue through successive generations of individual organisms, so also the mission statements of successful companies outlive those personnel that come and go. And just as genes can help modify their environment to influence their survival, so do mission statements influence (in business theory at least) the performance of the business and therefore their own survival.

But here’s where the crunch comes. Because the analogy of gene to mission statement seems so accurate (based only on the simplistic Dawkins definition of a gene which is increasingly being found wanting by molecular biologists), Dawkins description of the workings of the gene is actually no more than a description of the effect that the transfer of information has in any co-operative arrangement. But it takes a nonsensical leap of faith, an escape from reality, to conclude from such a description that the co-operative (in our analogy a business, in biology an organism) was created by those pieces of information, exists due to those pieces of information, and survives only so that those pieces of information can perpetuate themselves, a claim Dawkins makes for genes. [6] The first two are true to a limited degree; a business does need among other things the circulation of information for its creation and existence, but that raises further objections to Dawkins’ case. The circulation of information is a form of co-operation, it begins prior to the formation of the organization, so the prime mover in all forms of life whether biological or economic, is co-operation. Furthermore, this first circulation of information opens the door for the prior existence of a higher purpose, which is certainly the case in our business analogy. Some might argue that the analogy is not appropriate, is not an accurate reflection of a purely biological process, but Dawkins has no problem using the economy this way when it suits his purpose, repeatedly describing ecosystems as economies. [7] The fact that he has defined the gene and its sole function (sole according to Dawkins that is) repeatedly in the simplest of terms (a unit of information perpetuating itself), means that the mission statement analogy can be equally simple, and is about as accurate as one can be. Accordingly, his cause is lost, for the transmission of units of information has a purpose higher than the preservation of information. The process has a use, a use requires a user, readers can decide for themselves if that user is an organism or some higher power.

There’s a joke doing the rounds of the internet at the moment in which a father explains sexual reproduction to his son using the language of computer operations; hard drive, downloads, you get the picture. It’s quite humorous due to the manufactured or contrived parallel of computer functions to reproductive processes. And that’s exactly what Dawkins’ view of the gene and its role in evolution is; a neat, clever, but contrived image that like the internet joke seems to fit exactly, seems to provide a workable picture of the process, but which when examined turns out to be no more than a caricature or parody that omits two absolutely vital factors, the element of life and its accompanying purpose. Purpose in this context is a concept derided by Dawkins because he sees it in religious terms and therefore decrees it to be nonsense. But if we look at the nature of life itself, it seems to me that, using Dawkins own language, when life first originated in “the primeval soup” that mixture of chemical compounds which assumed life could only be distinguished from lifeless compounds by the presence of a simple or primitive form of co-operation, as Dawkins own work seems to imply. [8] It therefore seems logical to conclude that co-operation is the essence of life, so if our treatment of the analogy above is valid then life has purpose.

It’s interesting that Dawkins has been labelled by admirers as “Darwin’s Rottweiler”, or the modern version of “Darwin’s Bulldog” Thomas Huxley. But those who came up with this little play on words are closer to the mark than they intended. Just as Huxley betrayed Darwin by directing the public away from Darwin’s belief in the importance of sociality in evolution, [9] so also has Dawkins. Huxley’s use of Darwinism perpetuated falsehoods regarding class, a single-handed contribution to global discord that might be without parallel. [10] Dawkins appears at first glance to display no such fault, and perhaps because of an admitted political naivety there seems to be no obvious agenda behind his theorising. It’s not that he can’t see sociality and co-operation; his works are full of examples that constantly contradict his description of genes and their function. But the pull of natural selection, that overwhelming fascination with individualism, survival and competition that’s had an unbreakable hold on a section of the British intelligentsia for centuries, [11] has put Dawkins squarely in the camp of the fundamentalists of science, and ultimately the fundamentalists of economics, for the two are closely linked. How can that be? Consider this. Dawkins’ view of co-operation is ideological, illogical, and identical to that of the economic fundamentalists, for he can quite happily accept co-operation as an evolutionary factor as long as that co-operation is among genes, among cells, among organisms that are closely related, but not under any circumstances among organisms at large. Margaret Thatcher was paraphrasing not only Hayek but also Dawkins when she declared “There is no society, there’s only individuals and families.” [12] The class warriors of the bourgeoisie saw as far back as Thomas Hobbes that the revolution in scientific progress that was then in its infancy, could be guided and managed to assist them to shape the world to their narrow design. That project has been possibly the greatest success story of modern history, with players such as Dawkins being unwitting pawns, unaware of their role in the grand scheme of things. But is Dawkins as innocent as he appears? His breathtakingly misleading treatment of group selection in The God Delusion gives rise to serious doubt. Dawkins: “Those of us that belittle group selection admit that in principle it can happen. The question is whether it amounts to a significant force in evolution.” [13] He then mounted an insignificant attack on group selection, but felt compelled to concede at the end that his ultimate authority, Darwin, “…came as close as he ever came to group selection in his discussion of human tribes…” A single paragraph quote from Darwin’s The Descent of Man followed:

When two tribes of primeval man, living in the same country, came into competition, if (other circumstances being equal) the one tribe included a great number of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members, who were always ready to warn each other of danger, to aid and defend each other, this tribe would succeed better and conquer the other… Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected. A tribe rich in the above qualities would spread and be victorious over other tribes: but in the course of time it would, judging from all past history, be in its turn overcome by some other tribe still more highly endowed.

Darwin was clearly talking there of the survival and reproductive potential of a group, but not according to Dawkins; “I should add that Darwin’s idea was not strictly group selection, in the true sense of successful groups spawning daughter groups…” The unwary reader might conclude from this that Dawkins had given a faithful account of Darwin’s treatment of the matter and dealt with it satisfactorily. Not so. Darwin devoted two full chapters to the importance of sociality in evolution, and conducted his analysis of the theoretical tribe for a total of nine paragraphs before concluding that a tribe displaying unselfish co-operation and common purpose “would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection.” And this would be natural selection! It can’t be any plainer. And it can’t be any plainer that Dawkins has misled his readers and is defining group selection in such a narrow sense as to render it irrelevant. It’s Dawkins narrow interpretation of reproductive outcomes that’s the problem here. Because natural selection was first defined around the foremost reproductive unit, the individual, in Dawkins’ blinkered world the group must reproduce other groups in order to fit neatly into the definition. In other words, the group must emulate the individual in order to earn legitimacy, must emulate the individual or be excluded from the debate! This is not science, but evidence of a prior agenda.

An argument can be mounted that the entire body of evolutionary biology emanating from Britain (until recent times when biologists such as Professor Gabriel Dover began great work in molecular biology) has been channeled into an elaborate justification for economic individualism. Take the case of W.D. Hamilton for example, who by formalizing in the 1960s the theory of kin selection that had existed for some time in British scientific circles, paved the way for the selfish gene view of evolution. Here’s an extract from an on-line lecture series on biology; “Hamilton's kin selection theory is based on the fact that relatives share genes. By co-operating with relatives, survival of these shared genes is encouraged. Hamilton worked out the conditions under which altruism pays off.” He did indeed, by working out a mathematical formula to fit the conditions under which an act of altruism resulted in a benefit to the “actor.” The “actor”? This is the language they use! Can you believe this? And so what? If we had the time to waste we could do that for every human activity, and that’s the whole point. It’s a feature of those who push the line of economic individualism that for them everything is reducible to economic terms. Just as the quote above indicates; “altruism pays off” and it’s all about economics. Reducing unselfishness to a mathematical formula is clearly an attempt to frame it in neutral, colorless, dispassionate and ultimately worthless terms. To devalue it; to squeeze the life out of it. But the advent of molecular biology has been a disaster not yet acknowledged by the selfish gene theorists, as kin selection, the bedrock of their belief system is now the rock on which they founder, for it turns out that we do not share genes with close relatives only; we share genes with all humanity and with all life. [14]

When key concepts of biology, that is, natural selection, kin selection, group selection and genes, are defined so narrowly that certain conclusions are impossible to avoid, then we are no longer dealing with science but with propaganda. Dawkins himself in a rare moment admitted that “What I have now done is to define the gene in such a way that I cannot really help being right!” Need I say more? Probably not, but as a whole generation of biologists has been indoctrinated to believe that selfish-gene theory is serious science, we should put the Dawkins-as-intellectual scenario to rest forever. He’s asserted more than once that because he uses the term selfish in its biological or technical sense, (i.e. self-preserving) [15] people should not read too much into it as he’s not using it in the normal way. Then comes this pious rubbish: “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs.” [16] And: “We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth… We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism, something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world.” [17] By opposing “selfish” to “generosity and altruism” Dawkins clearly uses the word in its normal emotive sense rather than the technical sense so his disclaimer is dishonest, particularly as there’s an endless shifting back and forth in meaning throughout his works. Worse still, the entire passage is based on an abysmal knowledge of the natural world in which examples of disinterested altruism not only abound, but have been documented for centuries and have even been cited by Darwin. [18] Dawkins is aware of that documentation so his failure to deal with it is not just disingenuous; it destroys forever his claim to be a searcher for truth. [19] As for his contention that organisms are no more than vehicles used by genes to perpetuate themselves, we can judge the value of that by considering an extract from his 1989 article titled ‘Universal Parasitism and the Co-evolution of Extended Phenotypes’. [20] Sounds very scientific, doesn’t it? Prepare to be disappointed. Dawkins here tries to present parasitism as a general rule of nature, a universal law, in order presumably to establish selfishness as a universal law. Parasitism, in order to be universal, requires a leap into that fantasy world inhabited by Dawkins in which even genes are parasitic, are cooperative only in order to get themselves into the next generation. Dawkins: “So all the genes of a body can be regarded as gentle parasites of that body.” That can only be the case when the organism they inhabit is redefined to suit the theory, redefined as a vehicle for genes. Dawkins, as we’ve seen, has made redefinition an art form. But the part of the article most telling was a description of the life cycle of a liver fluke that uses a snail as host before finally lodging in a sheep, from which Dawkins concluded: “A snail is just a fluke's way of getting into a sheep, and hence of getting its genes into the future.” Now that’s obviously simplistic nonsense, another instance of Dawkins trying desperately to appear clever, but the twisted, almost insane logic behind the statement is the same as for his claim that an organism is a gene’s way of getting itself into the future.

So that leaves Dawkins as something of an enigma. As I see it, he’s made two significant contributions to learning. He has confronted with conviction and courage the dangerous anti-intellectualism of religious fundamentalism, and he had the brilliant insight that cultural entities that are self-replicating are subject to natural selection, a useful input to sociology. That’s it. All else will be forgotten, or remembered only as a lesson in how not to conduct scientific research. Because although Dawkins is a gifted writer with a flair for metaphor, there’s a boyish quality to his writing, a youthful enthusiasm that leaves no room for self-analysis, for critical reflection, or for the possibility that there can be levels of truth, of reality.

But this leaves one question unanswered. How is it that Dawkins, if his theory of the selfish gene is incorrect, has become a key player in the science world and has almost succeeded in having the selfish gene accepted as a reality? My guess is that the concept has been a liberating one for many of his readers who were suddenly relieved of a great sense of guilt emanating from the selfish impulses they experience, for if selfishness is pre-programmed by genes then guilt does not arise. The great irony here is that we should not feel guilty about selfishness, not because it’s gene driven, but because selfishness is a learned behaviour, its elimination is a part of growing up. (See paragraph 1)

If the guess above is true, it follows that there exists a yawning void in Western culture, a gap that religion and philosophy have failed to fill but that Dawkins, full of puff and importance, has blundered into. The answer Christianity gives to this human impulse is also unsatisfactory – we are born sinners. I don’t accept that. Surely a new-born infant starts life with a clean slate. And just as surely this misdirection and misperception flowing from Christian belief has led to an ongoing conflict of emotions that has come to characterise and drive Western culture, has pushed us into a manic search for justification and self-worth that sees us imposing our questionable values on a bewildered world.

Steve Davis is the author of Rise Like Lions - The Hijacking of Australian History (Canberra: Ginninderra Press, 2000). He can be contacted for discussion, comment, criticism and abuse at stevej_davis@hotmail.com

Endnotes

1. For an explanation and rebuttal, see Edward O. Wilson, ‘Kin Selection as the Key to Altruism’, Social Research, Spring 2005 (available online).

2. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 2nd ed.(Oxford University Press, 1989), Chapter 1.

3. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Chapter 8.

4. Dawkins, The God Delusion (Bantam Press, 2006), 221.

5. Stephen Jay Gould, ‘Will We Figure out How Life Began’, Time, April 10, 2000, 92-93.

6. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Chapter 2.

7. For example, see Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain – Selected Essays (Phoenix Paperback, 2004), 266.

8. “An origin of life, anywhere, consists of the chance arising of a self-replicating entity.” From: Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable (Penguin, 1996), 261. Even single-celled organisms display cooperation, as in the various parts of the cell functioning for the well-being and survival of the whole. Self-replication, even by single-celled organisms, requires cooperation. There is no set definition for life, but it’s generally accepted to be characterised by the following; homeostasis, organisation, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction. All of these are forms of, or require, cooperation.

9. See Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (available online at Project Gutenberg), in which Darwin devoted chapters 4 and 5 to the importance of sociality in evolution, putting the question “It can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man?” later concluding that “The more enduring social instincts conquer the less persistent instincts.” By less persistent he was referring to various forms of selfishness, as the text clearly indicates.

10. See Thomas Huxley, Collected Essays: Evolution and Ethics (1893), in which Huxley inadvertently presented an ethical framework for the triumph of the strong over the weak, and like Dawkins showed an incomplete understanding of Darwin by concealing in Note 20 the importance of sociality in evolution. The result, as the British philosopher Mary Midgely put it in another context, is that “Social Darwinism is still the unofficial religion of the West.” Huxley’s intent in Evolution and Ethics appears entirely honourable, as in: “Further, I think I do not err in assuming that, however diverse their views on philosophical and religious matters, most men are agreed that the proportion of good and evil in life may be very sensibly affected by human action. I never heard anyone doubt that the evil may be thus increased or diminished, and it would seem to follow that good must be similarly susceptible of addition or subtraction. Finally… so far as we possess a power of bettering things, it is our paramount duty to use it and to train our intellect and energy to this supreme service of our kind.” But however noble such thoughts might be, they follow from the same fallacies advanced by Dawkins in the passages relating to references [16] and [17]. Indeed, so similar are they that both could have come from the same author.

11. See Steve Davis, ‘Dark Lords’, www.stateofnature.org, Summer 2007.

12. Full quote available online.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret Thatcher

13. Dawkins, The God Delusion, 170.

14. This argument was rejected by Dawkins in the second edition of The Selfish Gene where he referred to it as “Washburn’s fallacy”, deliberately denigrating in schoolboy fashion one who made outstanding contributions to science. But the argument is supported by Dawkins’ hero Hamilton of kin selection fame, and in recent years by Sober and Wilson. From the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy: “If altruism is to evolve, it must be the case that the recipients of altruistic actions have a greater than average probability of being altruists themselves. Kin-directed altruism is the most obvious way of satisfying this condition, but there are other possibilities too [Hamilton (1975), Sober and Wilson (1998)]. For example, if the gene that causes altruism also causes animals to favour a particular feeding ground (for whatever reason), then the required correlation between donor and recipient may be generated. It is this correlation, however brought about, that is necessary for altruism to evolve. This point was noted by Hamilton himself in the 1970s: he stressed that the coefficient of relationship of his 1964 papers should really be replaced with a more general correlation coefficient, which reflects the probability that altruist and recipient share genes, whether because of kinship or not (my emphasis S.D.) [Hamilton (1970), (1972), (1975)]. (This point is theoretically important, and has not always been recognized…) Samir Okasha, ‘Biological Altruism’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Summer 2005 Edition);
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2005/entries/altruism-biological/
E.O. Wilson, one of the early promoters of kin selection has now refuted its mathematical and also logical bases: “It is theoretically possible, and may well occur in nature, that colonies evolve by the selective favoring of genes… in a manner that has little or nothing to do with kinship… Put another way, individuals do not form colonies because they are closely related. They are closely related because they form colonies… All of these developments in sociobiology are in full progress, and surprises no doubt lie ahead. The interpretation I have presented here may itself in time be swept aside.” Wilson, ‘Kin Selection’. How different is this sane and balanced approach to scientific argument from Dawkins’ black-and-white take-no-prisoners attitude. You will notice that in all discussions by biologists on this subject the assumption is made that altruism evolves. If my contention is correct, that cooperation is the essence of life itself, then altruism in one sense precedes evolution.

15. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Ch. 1.

16. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 3.

17. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 215.

18. Darwin, The Descent of Man; Dawkins wrote a lengthy introduction to a recent edition of The Descent, so we can safely assume he’s familiar with its contents.

19. See John Brockman, The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (Simon & Schuster, 1995), Chapter 3 (available online), for a staggering example of Dawkinsian self-promotion. In part: “If I think somebody's a fake, if somebody isn't genuinely concerned about what actually is true but is instead doing something for some other motive, if somebody is trying to appear like an intellectual, or trying to appear more profound than he is, or more mysterious than he is, I'm very hostile to that.” Oh dear!

20. Dawkins, Whole Earth Review No. 62, Spring, 1989, 90 (available online).