How can The Selfish Gene help us do better evolutionary thinking? Dawkins presents two universal qualities of a “good gene:”
“Selfishness,” the ability to outcompete rival alleles for the same spot on the chromosome.
“Fitness,” the ability to promote reproductive success in the vehicle organism.
One implication is that genes do best by not only making their vehicle organisms able to survive and reproduce in the niche for which the gene adapts them. The gene, or other genes with which it coordinates, ought to make that organism prefer that niche.
As an example, let’s say there’s a gene that confers resistance to a disease, but also causes disabling health issues. In an environment where that disease does not occur, the gene will be selected out of the gene pool. If that gene, or some other “cooperator,” is able to make the organism seek out that disease-ridden environment, then the gene will survive. This will form a niche for that organism, as well as its descendents. If this cohort of disease-adapted genes can cause the organism to behave in ways that spread the disease, so much the better.
Even if there are non-diseased alternative niches that the organism might occupy, this cohort of disease-preferring genes will cause some subset of the organisms to prefer, and therefore remain, in the diseased environment—despite the fact that if the disease were to be completely eliminated from the planet, the organisms presently residing in it would reproduce more efficiently than they do in the diseased environment.
This suggests a possible reason why people sometimes seem to seek out stressful environments. Many genes confer a variety of forms of stress resistance. If stress resistance comes at a biological cost, a stress-free environment will tend to select against these stress-resistance genes. And so these stress-resistance genes will tend to cooperate with genes that cause a preference for stress, and that tend to spread stress.
Stress-promoting genes?
How can The Selfish Gene help us do better evolutionary thinking? Dawkins presents two universal qualities of a “good gene:”
“Selfishness,” the ability to outcompete rival alleles for the same spot on the chromosome.
“Fitness,” the ability to promote reproductive success in the vehicle organism.
One implication is that genes do best by not only making their vehicle organisms able to survive and reproduce in the niche for which the gene adapts them. The gene, or other genes with which it coordinates, ought to make that organism prefer that niche.
As an example, let’s say there’s a gene that confers resistance to a disease, but also causes disabling health issues. In an environment where that disease does not occur, the gene will be selected out of the gene pool. If that gene, or some other “cooperator,” is able to make the organism seek out that disease-ridden environment, then the gene will survive. This will form a niche for that organism, as well as its descendents. If this cohort of disease-adapted genes can cause the organism to behave in ways that spread the disease, so much the better.
Even if there are non-diseased alternative niches that the organism might occupy, this cohort of disease-preferring genes will cause some subset of the organisms to prefer, and therefore remain, in the diseased environment—despite the fact that if the disease were to be completely eliminated from the planet, the organisms presently residing in it would reproduce more efficiently than they do in the diseased environment.
This suggests a possible reason why people sometimes seem to seek out stressful environments. Many genes confer a variety of forms of stress resistance. If stress resistance comes at a biological cost, a stress-free environment will tend to select against these stress-resistance genes. And so these stress-resistance genes will tend to cooperate with genes that cause a preference for stress, and that tend to spread stress.