Quotes About Genes

There is no intrinsic tendency in gene pools for particular genes to increase or decrease in frequency. But when there is a systematic increase or decrease in the frequency with which we see a particular gene in a gene pool, that is precisely and exactly what we mean by evolution.

It seems to follow from the thesis of this book that there is no important distinction between our 'own' genes and parasitic or symbiotic insertion sequences. Whether they conflict or cooperate will depend not on their historical origins but on the circumstances from which they stand to gain now.

It is, of course, true that 'Memes are utterly dependent upon genes, but genes can exist and change quite independently of memes' (Bonner 1980). But this does not mean that the ultimate criterion for success in meme selection is gene survival.

Whatever the claims of memes to be regarded as replicators in the same sense as genes, the first part of this chapter established that individual organisms are not replicators.

All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities

If the organism is not a replicator, what is it? The answer is that it is a communal vehicle for replicators. A vehicle is an entity in which replicators (genes and memes) travel about, an entity whose attributes are affected by the replicators inside it, an entity which may be seen as a compound tool of replicator propagation.

the culmination of an evolutionary trend towards the emancipation of survival machines as executive decision-takers from their ultimate masters, the genes.

Good' genes are blindly selected as those that survive in the gene pool.

These are claims that could have been made for Lorenz's On Aggression, Ardrey's The Social Contract, and Eibl-Eibesfeldt's Love and Hate. The trouble with these books is that their authors got it totally and utterly wrong. They got it wrong because they misunderstood how evolution works. They made the erroneous assumption that the important thing in evolution is the good of the species (or the group) rather than the good of the individual (or the gene).

Each gene works in a world of phenotypic consequences of other genes. Some of those other genes will be members of the same genome. Others will be members of the same gene-pool operating through other bodies. Yet others may be members of different gene-pools, different species, different phyla.

Functionally speaking, too, genes are gregarious. They have phenotypic effects on bodies, but they do not do so in isolation. I stress this over and over again in this book.

Selection favours those genes which succeed in the presence of other genes, which in turn succeed in the presence of them.

even with selfish genes at the helm, nice guys can finish first.

Richard Dawkins

Whatever the philosophical problems raised by consciousness, for the purpose of this story it can be thought of as the culmination of an evolutionary trend towards the emancipation of survival machines as executive decision-takers from their ultimate masters, the genes. [The Selfish Gene]

Selection has favoured genes that cooperate with others. In the fierce competition for scarce resources, in the relentless struggle to eat other survival machines, and to avoid being eaten, there must have been a premium on central coordination rahter than anarchy within the comunal body.

Adrian's fragment also refers to the question of responsibility: whether there's a chain of it, or whether we draw the concept more narrowly. I'm all for drawing it narrowly. Sorry, no, you can't blame your dead parents, or having brothers and sisters, or not having them, or your genes, or society, or whatever - not in normal circumstances. Start with the notion that yours is the sole responsibility unless there's powerful evidence to the contrary.

I have never looked to religion for comfort—belief is just not in my genes. But reading Mastering the Art of French Cooking—childishly simple and dauntingly complex, incantatory and comforting—I thought this was what prayer must feel like.

intended as a dig at my father, the enterprise being another of science's excesses, like cloning or whisking up a bunch of genes to make your own animal. Antagonism in my family comes

I know genes are a big deal, son, but they're not the be-all and end-all. Rob slowed to a halt at the lights, wishing the dickhead behind would back off. If they were, you'd be in a seafood salad and I'd be in prison.

I'm a good blend of both my mom and dad.

I have great genes. Thank you to my mom and dad for that one.

I have good genes. My father is Danish and my mother is Irish and Native American. They both have good skin.

It's in my genes. My mother was an opera singer. I'm clearly dramatic.