Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.A subtle "jab" at Richard Dawkins that entirely misconstrues his "selfish gene" argument. It is not as if the metaphorical selfishness of genes in general entails that humans exhibit literal selfishness. There is nothing so far that has been discovered about the brain or anything else that argues against Dawkins' basic characterization of evolutionary biology as a marketplace where genes compete ("selfishly") for space on the genome.
Moreover, none of these empirical details have any relevance to a debate about materialism, which seems to be what Brooks is trying to rebut.
1 comment:
Dude, you have no idea how often I confront misunderstandings about biology, especially evolution, in the context of an argument regarding morality and/or theology. Even prominent physicians, some of the most educated people on the planet, especially when it comes to genetics and the "human condition", but for some reason when they start talking about arguments for or against atheism and how that may or may not relate to biology and evolution, they're back in elementary school in the 1920s. It really, REALLY makes me upset.
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