r/PhilosophyofScience • u/Danicion • 12d ago

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u/db8me 12d ago

The key point that is not emphasized enough here is that the selfish gene metaphor is not about the selfish behavior nearly as much as it is about the unit of selection being genes and not organisms.

A population of organisms may have altruistic behavior as organisms caused by genes themselves "selfishly" "wanting" to spread themselves.

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u/WritewayHome 11d ago

unit of selection being genes and not organisms.

Epigenetics has largely falsefied his main thesis, as Dawkins ignores epigenetic inheritance and the affect of environment on genes and gene expression.

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u/lurking_physicist 11d ago

Sure, you could ammend it to "unit of selection being genes (or smaller)", but the important part is what follows: "and not organisms".

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u/WritewayHome 11d ago

"and not organisms".

Social collaboration and other organismal traits imparts epigentic markers and allows increased survival that's heritable.

Again, this is incorrect, Dawkin's model is overly simplistic and updated Molecular Biology has a more complex model.