Your Genes Are Not “Selfish” (Part 3) — The Political Story and Neutral Science

You and I, including “public intellectuals” may not be infallible humans. Truth is at the mercy of overpowered viral memes.

(This chapter is suitable for the “science-savvy”. I recommend lay readers to check out Part-1 and Part-2 for a more fun exploration of the evolution of life)

I have introduced two narratives of how life comes to be in Part-2. The first one is Dawkins’ Selfish Gene view of life. This book is neither about selfishness nor altruism. In fact, he tried to put forward something far more ambitious, i.e., every shape, form, behavior we see in the dazzling biological world is reducible to “existing for the benefit of some tyrant genes”. That’s why he likes to call genes “ruthlessly selfish competitors” and describe the reality of evolution as a one-dimensional process — one allele crowding out another. This is referred to as gene-centered, “adaptationist” thinking in the evolution community, and this line of thinking explores the so-called “ultimate/optimal design objective” of evolution at the level of genes (even though evolution is often regarded as not having a goal), bypassing all the steps in the midst. Furthermore, he insisted natural selection should directly act on each gene (allele), not genome, haplotype, individual, or group. Even when it isn’t, we should still re-express it in gene terms (just like a chair can be re-expressed as a bunch of atoms).

The truth is, the book’s central claim: “a trait evolves to be more common when it benefits the continual survival of the genes responsible for it” is essentially an irrefutable tautology with zero depth of explanatory power. This coarse-grained thinking no doubt gives a liberating feeling to lay readers, but it is really a false picture of the complex reality. Many readers indeed thought they “understood” the Selfish Gene (and by extension, evolution) as “Oh wow, that explains why I am altruistic to my own kids! There must be an altruistic gene trying to help itself!”, without knowing the bigger contentions beneath the narrative he created.

This allure of granting genes with the objective of maximizing fitness not only confuses lay readers but also “scientists” who make models. For such agential thinking to work genuinely as “a metaphor”, reality has to be strictly adaptationist at the gene level by pure logic, and by extension, we need to know what and how genes can really be said to have attained “global maximal fitness” under a continuously changing, stochastic environment, which needless to say is a mystical concept (based on poorly calculated and reasoned “gene level fitness”). It is like a kind of physics/chemistry that obsessed over an “optimal” equilibrium, but one that is in an imaginary constant vaccuum.

There is a far more straight-forward narrative of the story of life which covers a fuller complexity. Ancestral genes/molecules (that managed to descend into life as we know it via LUCA) must have a rudimentary ability to cooperate with diverse chemicals and over time the endless sought of new cooperation has further been refined by natural selection across the biological hierarchy to culminate in the complex, tightly-coordinated biological orchestra we now see. That is, the more minimalistic and impotent an entity is (i.e., like a tiny gene), the more it needs to rely on cooperating with others in order to persist under the merciless laws of physics, otherwise, no order can be formed (“order” is the most fundamental requirement of life). You can see how this reconciles with our knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics and life history, without needing to invoke perverse metaphors and definitions.

In other words, ancestral genes must first join forces with other molecules in order to build bigger, more durable structures and gain potential “freedom to do stuff” (functions). Selfish or ruthless behaviors (however you like to call them) are one of many emergent traits allowed by a higher degree of freedom (it comes “second”). An implication is that the higher up the biological hierarchy, in fact, the more selfish an entity can potentially behave towards outsiders (in contrast to thinking the tiniest gene as the most selfish), e.g., the fossil empire or Russian army are orders of magnitude more selfish than any individual or gene could ever dream of. Diversity is at the mercy of overpowered teams (for details, refer to Part-2).

“Life is life not because of the ability to replicate and outnumber others (in fact, many chemical systems can self-replicate), but because of the potential degree of freedom that gives rise to ever more phenotypic possibilities!” — Marmotian

What the science says

The above may all sound very much like a battle of semantics and terminologies, but not exactly. They are distinct perspectives, one much fuller and the other much more limited, suitable only for specialized short-term statistical exercises that can never explain nor predict any “big picture” — macroevolution.

The fuller perspective is useful even beginning from the earliest phase of evolution because it incorporates another basic aspect of reality — chance (electrostatic) interactions and emergence. Modern evidence has shown that ribosome, a product of tight RNA-protein cooperation that performs “translation”, arose earlier than replication machinery such as DNA polymerases (as well as RNA replicase). In fact, the genetic sequence encoding DNA polymerase has been “shuffled” substantially across the domains of life, but the core sequence and function of ribosomes have remained almost intact since its origin ~4 billion years ago.

The implication is immense — our ancestral “gene” (RNA) may very well have first achieved persistence by “rigidity” as mentioned at the end of Part-2, via joining force with layers of peptides and other molecules for better chemical stability. By sheer combinatorial molecular cooperation (as they attach and detach spontaneously) that generates new phenotypes, one later became more efficient at “elongation” — the recruitment of new nucleotides i.e., creating de novo sequences that could be either structural or functional. This cooperative, positive feedback loop continuously drove the formation of new phenotypes i.e., one such phenotype is the ability to replicate efficiently. Therefore, this is not a sensationalist gimmick (like The Selfish Gene) when I suggested the ability to cooperate must come first and is more fundamental for life, and a possible “ruthlessly selfish” scenario of ultra-fast replication/competition could only come second (and would nonetheless get tamed down after a while). This is evident in modern “origin-of-life” research.

We can clearly see that the central premise of the Selfish Gene requires high-fidelity replication, which in turn first requires a “protective, cooperative environment” sheltering and maintaining the molecular machinery (How did those evolve then?). But this is not to say replication is not important or anything, in fact, it is once again a mechanism to generate new phenotypes. That is to say, in reality, molecules (entities) with diverse phenotypes continually exploring cooperation with one another is the better way to view life’s progress, rather than emphasizing on beating imaginary rival genes “getting in the way”.

This perspective also has implications in identifying the potential signature or property of life in extraterrestrial habitats, as well as shedding light on why “cells” have been the central spotlight of biology, which is basically just layers of biomolecular soup, but one that nonetheless invokes an awe of “intelligent design” by its sheer intricate cooperative mechanism.

Furthermore, this perspective reconciles with ecological niche construction and destruction (and some physics and thermodynamics) which for good reason I won’t cover here. That is, it leads us back to the right idea about natural selection: what is being selected is the phenotypes (not genotypes) allowed by a certain environment, most alleles (by identity) that have ever existed have no evolutionary immortality, nor should it be treated as a “maximizing agent”, as shown by the law of extinction from paleontological works (alleles existence on average are probably more short-lived than a species). All examples of convergent evolution also make a good case for this secondary “bookkeeping nature” of genes.

“Evolutionary permanence is achieved by having the right phenotypes, i.e., the functions and forms, not by containing a certain gene sequence.” — Marmotian

The political story

“To a survival machine, another survival machine (which is not its own child or another close relative) is part of its environment, like a rock or a river or a lump of food. It is something that gets in the way, or something that can be exploited.” — Dawkins

Let’s take a turn to some politics, I found an insightful comment on a Guardian article by a commentator: Leconfidant. Regardless of the opinion and preference of which narrative is the most sensible, Leconfidant laid out a very important point — the science of evolution has been, by and large, muddled by political and personal agendas. This includes notorious “science” that justifies social Darwinist policies, Hitler’s eugenics, and Spencer’s support of laissez-faire capitalism.

These are extreme cases that we now know harm society in a very visible way, but it doesn’t mean a “less acutely misleading” narrative does no harm on a day-to-day basis. In the case of the Selfish Gene, the confusing terminologies, definitions and radical descriptions of the so-called “ruthless nature” of genes have led many lay readers to really think that evolution is all about genes ruthlessly wrestling each other over. This narrow framework together with the viral but vague notion of “survival of the fittest” is internalized to guide life decisions — apparent acts of kindness, heroism, and the greater good, are not so noble after all as everything you do all seem to come down to selfishly replicating some genes, might as well be more “authentic” and enjoy the ride.

“We help others who are not directly related to us because we share similar versions of genes with them.” — Dawkins

This is not just confusing for laymen, most scientists following evolutionary biology know that there was an unusual time that lasted decades after Hamilton’s rule¹ and the “gene’s-eye” view derivatives including The Selfish Gene (check the footnote to see what Hamilton’s rule is about), when numerous research had suddenly emphasized on determining an aggregate probabilistic genetic-relatedness parameter to “explain” the evolution of social traits², all to reinforce the one-dimensional narrative that altruism must only evolve among close genetic relatives, the closer the more (see counter-examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). Worse still, in many of these studies, you can’t see the workings of environmental selective pressure (i.e., the sky is eternally sleeping), the selection mechanism that is causally determining the fitness metrics in the very same equation is being de-emphasized, which needless to say is a colossal limitation that strips away the essence of natural selection (cf. the discussion by Okasha (2006) about gene’s-eye view often confuses mere book-keeping of evolutionary outcomes with causality). Imagine how much wasted research effort that in the end only gives a “ha, there is a correlation, this explains!”.

Such research trends illuminate an important thing, a lot of “explanatory” research on life history and behavioral patterns is still dominated by decades-old “intuitive” mathematical ideas (and a few “popularizers” grew up learning these ideas). These highly simplistic mathematical statements are often just a re-expression of the outcome of evolution on both sides of the equation (both are the “result”, not the “cause” of an evolutionary dynamic). Hence, they started out with nothing but tautologies/definitional identities. To give an analogy, it is like a kind of physics that “predicts” the evolution of physical systems by obsessing over estimating every atom’s longevity in a particular position (which clearly would lead to circular reasoning), instead of investigating the underlying interaction processes that lead to certain atom arrangements prevailing. Such over-simplified tautologies no doubt give a liberating feeling in the sea of complexity (as in The Selfish Gene), but they feed into naïve opportunistic research programs, diverting resources and attention from important mechanistic and empirical works.

The worst use of language from the selfish gene camp is undoubtedly the implication of a rational decision-making agent with an overarching goal of maximizing gene/inclusive fitness³ i.e., an adaptationist utopia (see a nice summary by Goodnight of how far such “design” principle can get us). This parallels the failed theoretical development in economics (cf. 1,2,3), where both somehow peddle a self-interest maximization narrative and grossly ignore the environment.

Instead, one might raise that it is only possible to conceive such maximizing principle over larger-scale community fitness or even biosphere fitness (instead of a certain focal gene fitness). This is arguably much more consistent with what we know about the workings of thermodynamics³ and life’s history of social conquest and extinction (all claims of fitness optimization principles working at a small-scale should be disputed by the law of extinction). Ideological ego against group selection historically might be the only reason that stops the selfish gene camp from admitting it. Anyway, such optimization principles are tall tales when there is yet a consensus (after ~6 decades) on how the 3 “simple” aggregated terms in Hamilton’s rule should be formally defined and parameterized to be useful for “predictions”.

Extra: Such perverse language of genes as “intentional agent” persists in supposedly more serious scientific writings, which I personally find a bit unsettling.

“The X chromosome has been viewed as placing twice as much value on the fitness of females as it does the fitness of males, on account of it spending twice as much evolutionary time in the bodies of females than in the bodies of males” (Source)

“Fusexins (genes) could be some kind of element that wanted to cause fusion between cells for its own benefit.” (Source)

Problems run deep with the gene’s-eye reductionist narrative (and its progeny such as finding genes for a “binary” behavior type of research). Working out high-level phenomena such as the decision to behave in a certain way at a certain time, many social traits and cultures in different contexts etc., from the gene up is necessarily an impossible science due to conceptual, computational and experimental limits (and frankly Dawkins also had to invent “memes” to sidestep away). It is akin to a futile exercise of analyzing some billiard ball movements by measuring every atom state and applying Schrodinger’s equation individually to derive a joint statistical probability of motion trends, only to forget about the cue and the air. That is, it takes away the investigator insight and advocates the same reductionist method over and over.

End words

Only a true advancement and understanding of science can drive beneficial changes in policies, behaviors and social evolution. The take-home is that The Selfish Gene is a successful meme because of its viral ability to replicate, but it lacks the layer of substance, like the ribosome’s ability to connect and build intricate structure, to illuminate the permeating depth of reality. Similarly, there is little merit to viewing life as all about caring and love in harmony instead of ruthless competition (or something about a benevolent God etc.).

Science in the end should be settled by evidence and good causal logical reasoning, but people being people, most still love their ego more so (myself included). I am willing to change my view if someone takes up the challenge to convincingly explain why the Selfish Gene, from ground logic up, is useful to understand evolution without some colossal verbal gymnastics, when other more mechanistically sound knowledge and tools are available. So far, I think science has shown that the simplistic view presented in The Selfish Gene is a distraction and blockage of progress, it is one of those books that bears the aura of triggering your emotion by reaffirming the societal stereotypic (and simplistic) view of life in that time (which is surprisingly much more limited than Darwin’s original idea 160 years ago).

To end, remember that genes are a direct slave to the merciless physics of the environment, the same way a meme is a slave to how the world chooses to communicate and tell the story. All I can say is that Darwin did not publish a book with an aim to be a best-seller, nor to participate in the publish or perish rat race.

Footnotes

1. Hamilton’s rule is a mathematical statement: “when the all-encompassing, net fitness benefit of a trait attributable to a gene(s) is positive, this trait and its gene tends to spread and increase in frequency”. This is akin to something like: “the statistically-defined property (e.g., temperature) of a system is increasing when some hypothesized underlying components of the system (e.g., molecules) are gaining kinetic energy”. It is clear that such a statement says nothing about causality (where the added kinetic energy came from?). In all fairness, it might have limited use before we discovered the detailed workings of the molecular world. But why would no one be a fanatic of such statements anymore these days? The answer is simple, it is too trivial and the field has (to) moved on.

2. I do not deny genetic relatedness could have an effect on the evolution of altruism. But Hamilton’s rule nor inclusive fitness method correctly models such an effect with its highly aggregated parameters derived from fitting exercises. The actual causal mechanism underlying such a genetic relatedness effect could be as varied as: kin discrimination, limited dispersal, shared habitat preference, recognition of greenbeard-like phenotypic markers and horizontal gene transfer (see Birch, 2017).

3. The principle of maximizing inclusive fitness may be interpreted as: the rate of replicating processes happening (to replicate “whatever is inclusive”) is being “maximized”, and hence entropy production is also being “maximized” for this biological process system. However, our best understanding is that the smaller scale and shorter timeframe we consider a system (what the gene’s-eye camp typically deals with), the less likely we are to actually observe such small systems indeed increase in net entropy production (relative to whatever outside of the “inclusive groups”), due to stochasticity and kinetic constraints on energy mixing. Ironically, there is only one true outsider — non-biosphere if you agree with common descent. That is, we are more likely to see such a principle clearly laid out (if it does exist) on large spatial scale and geological timeframe (i.e., for the whole ecosystem or biosphere), which is what we see from paleontological evidence.