Talk:Gene-centered view of evolution

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Contents 1 "partially as a consequence of the influence of ideas from the study of complex systems, this view has become less dominant" 2 Subtitles 3 Cleanup 4 Gene-centric view 5 Gene by environment interaction 6 Unit of selection 7 POV remains 8 Oddly ahistorical 9 Stripping out sections! 10 POV 11 Balance 12 Unconfusing and modernising this article 13 More Restructuring

[edit] "partially as a consequence of the influence of ideas from the study of complex systems, this view has become less dominant"

For an example, see [1] from the complex systems literature and [2] from the biology literature. --Erauch 20:08, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Subtitles

'A Defence'? 'Conclusion'? Is there a more Wiki-appropriate title for these? Ziggurat 23:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

This has a slightly nutbar flavour to it. It refers to ligitimate issues (some/most biologists would call it a tempest in a tea cup, others would call it a controversy) but the article really doesn't do justice to the issues and has a detectable POV creationist/ID slant. eg the following sentences are really indefensible characterizations:

1. "Adaptation refers to those phenotypic traits of living systems characterized by their improbable functional organization"
2. "The human hand, the veins' valves, the vertebrate eye, the hemoglobin molecule, the pony fish's glow, parental investment and kin altruism are notorious examples of adaptation"

The article really doesn't even attempt to address the whole "bean-bag genetics" / "levels of selection" topic, but seems to aim to use the vague outline of the topic to launch into half-baked musings on other topics. Pete.Hurd 18:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gene-centric view

Is there any reason why this entry is somewhat incorrectly called gene-centered while the text (correctly) talks about the gene-centric view? - Samsara 14:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

In fact, how about calling the entry simply gene-centric view? The title is somewhat unwieldy, and you're unlikely to find a gene-centric view in any other discipline! - Samsara 17:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

'Tis rather clumsy either way I'd say... if I can prove it is in print do you think we should go back to Williams revolution? (see Talk:Richard_Dawkins Mikkerpikker 19:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, no problem at all. In fact, the changes have all been reverted already. - Samsara 23:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gene by environment interaction

Yes, gene-environment interaction is a desperately needed article, perhaps this and a fix-up of heritability (also desperately needed) would be the same task, an exposition on shared vs. unique environmental variance etc. Such a fix would make a nice hammer to pound down the sticking-up nail that is the Nature versus nurture page. Pete.Hurd 15:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It turns out that such an article does exist, but it is unexpectedly capitalised: Gene-Environment Interaction. - Samsara 15:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unit of selection

Please see my comments on Talk:Unit of selection regarding a potential merger with/split of that page. Safay 01:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV remains

1. Firstly, the selfish gene theory, properly understood, is most obviously not in opposition to "group selection" it in fact presents mechanisms for it (i.e. the proliferation of groups that SIGNIFICANTLY, as in not prone to chance, share adaptive allels which themselves only proliferate via group survival and hence selection). Portions of this article are clearly in misunderstanding of what Dawkins was getting at.
2. Secoundly, de facto probablities illuminate little and statements that the functional organization of lifeforms on this earth is improbabl are by and large meaningless. It might, however, be appropriate in an article devoted to life on other planets, but even in this context, improbable status should only be laid upon UNKNOWNS it has little use when you ask the question for knowns. Example, the probability of a person winning a lottery is a figure of improbability, though you can still exact it, whereas when Jane Doe wins the lottery there is a probability of exactly 1, because we know this is what happened. The probability of life on any particular other planet is low, but here on earth it is 1. As this article attempts to illucidate a theory on the state of nature it must agree in tense and in application of appropriate maths.

There are more ornate and complicated ways of arguing against the term Improbable and I urge you to seek them out if you are in disagreement with the logic presented above.

I am changing the two parts of this article for there is abundant scientific evidence which affirms, for the time being, doing so.

68.76.216.234 02:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

This theory is much more than kin selection, it refers to all levels of organisation. Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Understood, my point still stands, dawkins wasn't the only person involved in the development of this theory, and so his ideas alone do not signify it. Group-Selectionists (pardon the neologism) quickly adaptapted group selectional theory to the fundaments of Selfish gene, which for the time being works and explains group selection phenomenon, see for example herd selection on scholar.google a clear adaptation of selfish gene grew out of such things. I would argue that group-selectionists of the more scientifically valid point of view have further adapted to taking each species as an individual case, and no longer assert that all species are subject to group selection (if in fact they ever did), for there are clear examples of this where except for mating all conspecifics are in direct competition with one another. In one last little observation I would like to add that media mainstream and scientific mainstream are two completely seperate things and this article needs to decide which it is, thus far it has adhered to media-mainstream formats in its oversimplifications and misidealizations of the theory in discussion. Additionally, I am removing the term improbable and will take steps to try to lock this page until further discussion proves more useful so far there has been no reasonable argument for the term "improbable" or the statement that "selfish gene" is at odds with "group selection".

68.22.243.113 15:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oddly ahistorical

The narrative is strangely ahistorical. It characterizes some early discoveries as being related to "genes" when the term and concept did not yet then exist, mixes up the order of things (i.e. Crick appears before Fisher), somewhat misattributes things (Mendel's fame is not the idea of particulate heredity—Galton and others had proposed this previously—but in describing the dominant/recessive behavior and the various laws), and is very vague at certain parts (i.e. saying that discoveries in inheritance happened "a few decades" after Darwin's Origin—in fact it was many decades later that most of that got worked out, after Darwin's death). It would be nice if someone could go over this and made the order more clear; as it is it would be very misleading if you tried to use this as an actual guide to the history of this concept. --Fastfission 19:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stripping out sections!

I think the first 3 sections (Improbable functional organization, Evolution by natural selection, Discoveries in heredity) should be removed as they are essentially off topic. Does anyone else agree? — Axel147 23:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, ideally they would be replaced with a short section of historical context. Laurence Boyce 13:48, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

The article's first section bore no real relevence to the focus of the rest of the article, and had a non-neutral point of view. In fact, it looked like someone just took some of the cliché, "it seems like X might be true, therefore X is true, and we shouldn't apply the scientific method to attempt to prove or disprove X," pro-ID arguments, peppered them with out-of-context attributions to Dawkins, and stuck them at the top of the article so unsuspecting visitors would be misled. That's lame. The "this is off-topic" tag serves no real purpose, so I simply deleted the section. It couldn't be cleaned up, because the section should never have been in the article in the first place.</rant> Sean Parmelee 04:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Balance

Without a section describing the criticisms of this view, this article will never be complete. [Sorry - I have no userID to leave!] 82.9.246.216 08:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unconfusing and modernising this article

I've just come across the article and I think it needs a lot of work. My main concerns are:

1. The science reads like a time-warp from the 1970s. It turns out that things are a great deal more complicated than that, and almost every scientific statement made is an approximation with very important exceptions. (To give an extreme example, viruses work completely differently) The articles it references are much more up to date. In particular the notion that there is a simple relation between a gene and "its" phenotypical effect turns out to be gravely mistaken. Phenotypical effects come from complex networks of genes in many combinations, acting on many other complex networks.
2. There are essentially two versions of "selfish gene" theory. The weak version is that "it is often useful to think about evolution from a 'selfish gene' perspective." Most people would agree with this, although as the complexities of genes and genetic networks become more evident the value of this approach becomes less clear - and real Evolutionary Dynamics is done at the level of types in populations, not genes. The strong version, that "the only valid way of thinking about evolution is from a 'selfish gene' perspective" is scientifically false (lots of good evolutionary science is done from other perspectives) and probably not held by any leading working biologists.
3. The statement of the theory in the article is confused and not too well sourced. I have tried to straighten some of this out, but becasue I don't really support the theory It'd be better if someone else did. NBeale 21:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• NBeale, are you trying to say that inheritance of acquired characters is an evolution factor? Can you cite a source to back up that claim? Regarding the remainder - there's no statement that the centra dogma is universally true, adding a statement saying such adds nothing to the article. "Subsequent research shows...", well, of course. Again, what does that add to the article? *Spark* 20:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • When did Lamarckism come back as 'a' factor in evolution? Please revise your most recent changes to be more in line with currnet scientific understanding. Fred Hsu 14:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
    • So I read the article on Lamarckism after I wrote my comment above. And it cites recent researches to show Lamarckism in action. Now, I'll have to re-learn my evolution ;) Fred Hsu 15:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

NBeale, just FYI, I have some concerns with your recent edits, don't have to time now to go through it properly, but I can see much of what you've added being removed or significantly reworded. *Spark* 23:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More Restructuring

Yes *Spark* is right I deleted large sections so should take it to talk. My view is that the article is cumbersome as it is. It has to assume the reader has basic understanding of natural selection, genes, heredity etc. I suggest the first two sections are removed (and maybe condensed into a historic background sections later in the article) — Axel147 15:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)