Eusociality
'Gene Machines'
03/09/12 13:06 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Tim Radford at the Guardian recently reviewed Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene 30 years after it publication, and noted how little was known about genes at the time. He wrote that, "(Dawkins) starts to work out how genes might survive to confer just enough advantage to allow their 'survival machines' to pass those genes on to a new generation," and that "Biological behavior arises to maximize a gene's chance of continuing on to the next generation." S. Pelech provides a series arguments to dispell the concept of "selfish genes" and the notion that natural selection works simply at the level of the gene and individual. He points out that if total biomass and persistence are the best measures for the most successful species on the planet, then eusociality plays as much if not a greater role than the individual. Read More...