|
Exactly what, asked W. D. Hamilton, are
the things that natural selection is supposed to select?
The fittest what? Some biologists have thought in terms
of the individual organism working for its inclusive fitness,
while others have gone directly to the level of the gene,
'working' for its survival. Ideally there should be no difference
between these two views, but this assumes that the phenotypic
characteristics of an organism, to the extent that they
are controlled by any genes, are controlled by the genes
sitting inside that same organism. If genes in one animal
could exert phenotypic effects on the body of another
animal, we would have to revolutionize our views of adaptation.
Richard Dawkins shows that some such revolution
is, indeed, logically necessary, since genes can be said
to have extended phenotypes outside the bodies in
which they sit. The argument is developed step by step,
with full attention being given to possible objections and
difficulties. In the course of this development, the issues
tackled include the controversial ones of 'genetic determinism'
and 'adaptionism,' the ideas of manipulation and 'arms races,'
'evolutionarily stable strategies,' genetic 'outlaws' and
'selfish DNA.' 'fitness.' animal artefacts and parasitic
manipulations, the new concept of genetic 'action at a distance,'
and the organism as a phenomenon needing explanation in
its own right.
The book is designed for professional evolutionary
biologists and their students, but it is written in a style
that may appeal to many of the non-professional readers
who enjoyed the author's previous book, The Selfish Gene.
Richard Dawkins was born in 1941. He
was educated at Oxford University, where he did his doctorate
under the Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Niko Tinbergen.
From 1967 to 1969 he was an Assistant Professor of Zoology
in the University of California at Berkeley, after which
he returned to Oxford where he is now a Lecturer in Animal
Behaviour. His first book, The Selfish Gene, was
published in 1976. Since then he has been clarifying, developing,
and modifying the position advocated in The Selfish
Gene, with the result that The Extended Phenotype
is in some respects a logical development of the earlier
book; in other respects it represents a radical departure.
|
