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Irritating
Sep. 18th, 2024 07:53 pmBook Review: The Selfish Gene (1989 edition), by Richard Dawkins
Genes are chemicals, and whilst one might describe a chemical as "wanting" to do something in the context of a reaction, I find Dawkins' anthropomorphisms a bit much here. Underneath that layer, though, there are some interesting points to be found in the book - for example, that humans are the only species who often die of "old age", and a relatively unusual species in that we sometimes fight our own kind "to the death". But genes, really, are just complex fragments of chemicals, and some do better in the environment in which they find themselves than others, and over time, those ones proliferate. There's no intent to it. Sometimes, that environment can be influenced beneficially by other genes, and a kind of symbiosis can emerge; at other times, proliferation of one gene becomes counterproductive and a metaphorical pendulum swings in another direction. But the genes themselves aren't consciously playing game theory; Dawkins focuses on the Prisoner's Dilemma in depth, because it offers an explanation for some evolutionary journeys. I can't help feeling that this use is a biological example of a hidden variable theory, that the iterative behaviour over generations is a long random walk towards thermodynamic equilibrium, which averages out empirically in a way that looks like the game. This makes game theory a useful tool in this arena, but not one to be overdone as a full solution. Dawkins is honest enough to admit a couple of mistakes in the original edition, although these are only apparent if you read the endnotes and they could perhaps be more prominent as they do affect the argument.
Genes are chemicals, and whilst one might describe a chemical as "wanting" to do something in the context of a reaction, I find Dawkins' anthropomorphisms a bit much here. Underneath that layer, though, there are some interesting points to be found in the book - for example, that humans are the only species who often die of "old age", and a relatively unusual species in that we sometimes fight our own kind "to the death". But genes, really, are just complex fragments of chemicals, and some do better in the environment in which they find themselves than others, and over time, those ones proliferate. There's no intent to it. Sometimes, that environment can be influenced beneficially by other genes, and a kind of symbiosis can emerge; at other times, proliferation of one gene becomes counterproductive and a metaphorical pendulum swings in another direction. But the genes themselves aren't consciously playing game theory; Dawkins focuses on the Prisoner's Dilemma in depth, because it offers an explanation for some evolutionary journeys. I can't help feeling that this use is a biological example of a hidden variable theory, that the iterative behaviour over generations is a long random walk towards thermodynamic equilibrium, which averages out empirically in a way that looks like the game. This makes game theory a useful tool in this arena, but not one to be overdone as a full solution. Dawkins is honest enough to admit a couple of mistakes in the original edition, although these are only apparent if you read the endnotes and they could perhaps be more prominent as they do affect the argument.