Greedy Genes

DEEP INSIDE ALL of us, they lurk--mischieviously plotting to insure their own survival.

"As head of this DNA," the newly-elected president of the United Genes says at his inaugural address to the millions of purines and pyrimidines who have tuned in, "I will strive to unite all our genetic material from the lowest guanines to the highest cytosines so we can work together to create the meanest, nastiest, most selfish and lustful creature we have ever lived in, thereby continuing our, existence. This I promise." Thunderous applause.

Sound silly? I thought so, too.

Richard Dawkins' new book, The Selfish Gene, rehashes, somewhat incoherently, conclusions drawn from studies showing the tremendous influence of genes on animal behavior. The main reason Dawkins's book has not been immediately shoved away to some dusty corner in Widener where only zoologists and rats would dare to tread is because Dawkins has added a spicy--and misleading--approach to the subject of genetics.

Throughout his book, Dawkins writes as though genes are conscious entitites possessing human characteristics such as greed, selfishness, intelligence, and cunning. He says,

They swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, manipulating the outside world by remote control. They are in all of us; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is a main reason for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.

Human beings, Dawkins contends, are simply throwaway survival-machines for their immortal genes. Man is a gene machine: a robot vehicle, blindly programmed to preserve its "selfish" genes.

This perspective is simply a distorted one. Nucleotides and guanine molecules can't be selfish and they can't be cunning. Genes don't fight for survival. Genes couldn't care less whether they replicate or not. Different genes give organisms different traits. Some of these traits are conducive to survival and some are not. The genes that confer traits that help organisms survive and reproduce become more frequent in nature, but there is no such thing as a "selfish gene." What Dawkins is really writing about is natural selection--the nonrandom differential reproduction of particular genes. And the only new idea in the book--the idea of a "selfish" gene--ends up sounding rather silly.

WHY DAWKINS, a young professor of animal behavior at Oxford, would actually write a book like this one, is a mystery, but it is easily solved. Dawkins probably decided he could cut the academic rhetoric, simplify his writing style to suit the layman, exploit an exciting new angle, and make a mint.

That's all fine and good. Given what professors are making these days, I really can't blame Dawkins for trying to make a little on the side. But when you read this book, you realize that Dawkins wants his book to sell. Dawkins tries to make his book fascinating, and in that effort, he distorts the truth.

Dawkins is aware of this and occaisionally in the book he makes half-hearted apologies to his academic peers, writing that his analogies shouldn't be taken "too seriously." But this does little good when chapter after chapter illustrates the inherent "selfishness" of genes and the organisms they "control." By implication, this can be read as a simple justification of inequality and cut-throat competition in society.

And this is the main danger of the book. This is why Dawkins is incredibly irresponsible in the manner he treats the subject of genetics. He doesn't really believe genes are selfish, but a lot of people will believe it after reading his book. These are the people who will vote against welfare programs and refuse to believe anything can be done to eliminate social injustice. These are the defeatists who talk about human nature as though it were the Rock of Gibralter--completely controlled by genes with little environmental malleability.

At times Dawkins's book borders on absurdity. Since genes are selfish and so omnipotent, Dawkins queries, why don't they grab the reins and take complete charge over humans?

Dawkins answers his own question by giving another analogy (I have never read a book with so many analogies, most of them false). This time the analogy comes from a science fiction book Dawkins once read called A for Andromeda.

You see, Dawkins writes, there is this civilization 200 light years away. They want to spread their culture to distant worlds. So they assemble everything they want to say into one huge unbroken message, and then broadcast it out into space. The message is picked up by this huge computer on Earth which proceeds to take over the world and restructure society to accord with the outer-space radio message.

"Just as the Andromedans had to have a computer on Earth to take day-to-day decisions for them," Dawkins writes, "our genes have to build a brain."

IT'S THIS TYPE of writing that discredits The Selfish Gene. Dawkins gives the impression throughout the book that he is simply a nice zoologist who is attempting to simplify complex scientific data so more people can understand and appreciate it. But then he goes off on wild tangents, stringing together stupid analogies and speculating about the similarities between purine molecules and some futuristic society in Andromeda out of a science fiction novel he happened to find interesting. This type of rambling based on half-baked ideas that should have been kept in the oven doesn't exactly constitute the stuff of which great works of non-fiction are made of.

Dawkins has gotten much too wrapped up in his theories of genetic determinism to admit that cultural and environmental influences also affect behavior. This seems to be stylish these days. Scientists like E. O. Wilson, the author of Sociobiology, and William Shockley, newly elected member of the Academy of Sciences, and their biological explanations are gaining increased respectability.

But Dawkins, and those like him, might do well to spend less time observing animals and more time observing human beings before they decide how much influence genes have on human behavior. Dawkins forgets that just as he is more qualified than most to extrapolate on the mating tendencies of African anteaters, sociologists and psychologists may well be more qualified than he is to analyze the whys and wherefores of human actions and responses. It is silly and misleading to try to observe animal characteristics (which tend to be caused by genetic factors) and match them with corresponding human behavioral characteristics (which may be influenced by cultural factors).

AND, CITING EXAMPLES of behavior patterns in the animal kingdom to suggest human beings must inevitably behave in a similar fashion misses one major point. We are not animals, we are human beings. We are not controlled completely by genetic factors. Our relationship to animals farther down on the evolutionary scale is interesting and informative, but it can't be taken too seriously. Genetically, the difference between a man and a chimpanzee is negligible, but culturally there is all the difference in the world.

It is one thing to say genes help determine our height and weight. This is obvious. But to extend the argument beyond its scientific base and conclude that there must be complex genetic traits for altruism and aggression in human beings is going one step too far, too soon. The problem with The Selfish Gene is that it plays around with a subject which is controversial enough when dealt with honestly and factually. When, in the last chapter, Dawkins finally acknowledges that humans can "rebel" against their "selfish" genes, he fails to erase the overwhelming implications of the preceding ten chapters, and the result is a biased and inaccurate portrait of human life.

Well, so what? Lots of academics throw out zany ideas, you may say, it's all part of the process which ultimately leads to the truth and a more accurate conception of the universe. Maybe so. But academics also have a responsibility to avoid abusing the faith people put in them. They should not intentionally distort knowledge. And didn't distortions of Darwin's theory of "survival of the fittest" and belief in inherent genetic inferiority lead once to the death of six million Jews?