The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene

The first thing I will say about The Extended Phenotype (EP) is that it is far from the first book on evolution you should read and as a stand-alone Dawkins book it is a poor choice because it is a sequel of sorts to The Selfish Gene (TSG) and there is much more going on besides. I would suggest Climbing Mount Improbable or The Blind Watchmaker first. Both of those books by Dawkins have a much broader, more generalized, look at natural selection and evolution. TSG covers the basics of the gene view as the unit of selection. After you do this then I recommend that you read what has become known as the "Darwin Wars" to some (it is not a book but a collection of writings). The two main critics are Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin. There are two articles you should read from them before EP. They are called Darwinian Fundamentalism by Stephen Jay Gould and The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme: by Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin. Both articles appear on the unofficial Stephen Jay Gould archive on-line. You can read about the Darwin Wars in general there. Author Daniel Dennett has much to say on this also. EP is a two-fold book. In one respect it is an apologetics in response to an anti-selfish gene (calling this version of neo-Darwinism, Darwinian fundamentalist or the adaptationist program) movement that was also associated with the anti-sociobiology criticisms of E.O Wilson's work. In other respects EP is a straightforward work on evolution that is geared towards professional biologists in an attempt to take matters raised in TSG and to develop them further to encompass how the gene is expressed in the phenotype from the view of the gene and not the traditional view of the individual. Like TSG it will be anti-group selectionist. It is also very much a book on adaptation from the neo-Darwinian perspective. This book will enjoy a dog ear phenotype for those who get it. Chapter 1 - Necker Cubes and Buffaloes Dawkins suggests that EP is not really saying anything different than what we understand about phenotypes today. He suggests however that the gene view of phenotypes as adaptations in evolution offers much more for the evolutionist. Chapter 2 - Genetic Determinism and Gene Selectionism This is largely an apologetic for those who misunderstood The Selfish Gene to mean that people are puppets of our genes (some foreign book covers with puppet-type illustrations may have implied this) and who didn't get that the robot examples were just analogies. Dawkins sets the record straight, genes are selected for, they give rise to phenotypes and the environment has an impact on the phenotype so it is not possible that everything is determined by the gene alone. Dawkins brings up embryology (developmental biology) to put this gene myth to bed. However he says that it is important to understand that without genes, the phenotype could never be expressed at all. More crucially, how the ge

Richard Dawkins claims that his most significant contribution to evolutionary biology is contained in the final chapters of "The Extended Phenotype". Be that as it may, he's most widely known as the author of "The Selfish Gene (1976)", where he championed the gene's eye view of evolution and coined the term meme as the basic unit of cultural evolution. That said, I consider "The Extended Phenotype" to be the best in Dawkins' canon, which puts it high in the running for the best book on evolutionary biology. Dawkins' calls this book a work of unabashed advocacy. In fact, all of Dawkins' books advocate a particular reading of evolutionary biology, often parodied as ultra-Darwinism by his critics (including Jay Gould, Niles Eldridge, and Richard Lewontin). Ultra-Darwinism, simply put, is the belief that evolution proceeds, via natural selection, to gradually substitute alleles over long stretches of time. Ultra-Darwinism also encompasses the doctrine of adapationism, or the belief that specialized structures were molded by natural selection as adaptations to a particular mode of life. Dawkins' makes the case that what his critics often call Ultra-Darwinism is in fact quite orthodox neo-Darwinism, not a bold fringe-interpretation. Those who disagree with Dawkins will find no more apt defense of his beliefs about evolution than in this book. In the initial chapters of "The Extended Phenotype", Dawkins addresses critiques of "The Selfish Gene". Oftentimes these critiques are based on a gut-reaction or incomplete reading of his ideas, but those who rightly read both Dawkins and his critics will find his counter-arguments enlightening, albeit overwhelming. Dawkins also disrobes the nature vs. nurture debate in one of the most compulsively readable chapters of this book, defining just what it means when an ethnologist talks about a gene for a behavior, or for a morphological trait, or anything beyond the linear sequence of amino-acids that molecular DNA directly encodes. Dawkins re-hash is anything but repetitive. Each chapter is so dense with interesting ideas and concepts that readers will feel inclined to set the book down and discuss it with anyone who will listen at each available stop-point. It's not until the final few chapters that Dawkins even directly discusses idea of an extended phenotype. He hints at it all along, and you'll notice that once you're comfortable talking about genes "for" eye-color, or hypothetical blue-beards, or particularly stinky arm-pits, realizing that the route from gene to phenotype may be tortuously indirect (or without context unless kept under a specific set of environmental cues), the idea of the extended phenotype is no radical departure. Extended phenotypes include spider webs, termite mounds, and beaver dams--that is, any part of an organism's abiotic environment that is modified in a particular way according to that organism' genetic endowment. I think, more so than the radical idea of genes en

One of the reviewers here claims that Dawkins doesn't get that evolution doesn't see individual genes, but only individual organisms. This person isn't getting Dawkins!! Dawkins is saying individuals are a products of complex genetic interplay and that the influence of genes (singly or in groups) can extend outside the individual. The individual-centric viewpoint is only a viewpoint. In fact individuals are NOT selected by natural selection (all humans that have ever lived so far have eventually died!) GENES are selected -- albeit in groups since they reside together in an individual (this is their mini-environment)--though not permanently since recombination ensures genes will be shuffled regularly into new, though similar, micro-environments. My grandfathers genes live on -- though my grandfather is dead. Dawkins is repsenting a different viewpoint on GENETIC selection as he explains in the preface of the book. And it is a brilliant viewpoint. Genes have an influence on the world, that includes both the characterisitics and behaviors of individual organisms in which they reside as well as the behavior of organisms and artiftacts outside that individual. Really one of the great books in evolution.Let me put it another way--Is a physicits wrong when he claims the desk I sit at is mostly empty space? Sure looks solid to me, I say. But at the micro-level the desk is indeed mostly empty space and if neurtrinos could talk they would surely attest to this fact. One has to open one's mind to see that Dawkin's gene-centric perspective is as valid as the old-fasioned model and indeed leads to new insights and illuminations. That's thw whole point of him presenting this view after all!!! Isn't that waht good theory is supposed to do?

Biodiversity is more than a buzzword for ecologists. Variation gives life its grandeur, and Richard Dawkins gives us a description of the workings of variation. Fortunately, with a sharp mind and sharper wit, he has the ability to deliver this portrayal so that nearly everyone can understand it. That's not to say this book is an easy read. Although he delivers his narration as if sitting with you in a quiet study, you may still need to review his words more than once. That's not a challenge or a chore, it's a pleasure.Dawkins, unlike other science writers, is forthright in declaring his advocacy in writing this book. It's a refreshing start to his most serious effort. After publication of The Selfish Gene led to a storm of fatuous criticism, Extended Phenotype comes in response with more detail of how the gene manifests itself in the organism and its environment. It's clear that Dawkins' critics, who label him an "Ultra-Darwinist" [whatever that is] haven't read this book. His critics frequently argue that The Selfish Gene doesn't operate in a vacuum, but must deal within some kind of environment, from an individual cell to global scenarios. Dawkins deftly responds to critics in describing how genes rely on their environment for successful replication. If the replication doesn't survive in the environment it finds itself, then it, and perhaps its species, will die out.The child's favourite question, "why" is difficult enough for parents and teachers to answer. Yet, as thinking humans we've become trained to deal with that question nearly every context. So well drilled that we consider something for which that question has no answer to be suspicious if not insidious. Part of Dawkins presentation here reiterates that there is no "why" to either the process of evolution nor its results. It isn't predictable, inevitable or reasonable. It's a tough situation to cope with, but Dawkins describes the mechanism with such precision and clarity, we readily understand "how" if not "why" evolution works. We comprehend because Dawkins does such an outstanding job in presenting its mechanics.This edition carries three fine finales: Dawkins well thought out bibliography, a glossary, and most prized, indeed, an Afterword by Daniel C. Dennett. If any defense of this book is needed, Dennett is a peerless champion for the task. Dennett's capabilities in logical argument are superbly expressed here. As he's done elsewhere {Darwin's Dangerous Idea], Dennett mourns the lack of orginality and logic among Dawkins' critics. Excepting the more obstinate ones, these seem to be falling by the wayside. It's almost worthwhile reading Dennett's brief essay before starting Dawkins. It would be a gift to readers beyond measure if these two ever collaborated on a book.

If you haven't read "The Selfish Gene", stop, go back and read that book. If you really _get_ the message presented there, that replicators (DNA) have built all of the life on earth, then this book is not as revealing as Dawkins seems to think it is. By this, I mean that there are no knew insights, only explanations of how DNA behaves. I can only suppose that most readers of TSG are not actually aware of the full implications of the idea he presented in that book. If you understand that DNA builds organisms, and that genes cooperate to the extent necessary for each to insure its own continued existence, then the idea that genes in different organisms, species, etc... can cooperate is not surprising. The reader will definitely learn a lot about how genes cooperate and compete with one another, and for this alone, the book is worth reading. But, if you understand that genes make organisms (when it suits them), and that organisms do not _use_ genes to reproduce themselves, then you may be disappointed to find that this book lacks something that a groundbreaking book like The Selfish Gene necessarily contains. Still, highly recommended, a powerful exploration of replicator phenomenology.(Note: if you have read this book, and think I've missed the point, please email me your interpretation, or where you think I've gone wrong.)