The universe Richard Dawkins imagines couldn't exist for five seconds
February 8, 2017 4:04 AM   Subscribe

Robert Newman has won an award for his late 2015 radio show and book, Robert Newman's Entirely Accurate Encyclopaedia of Evolution which tackles several issues regarding evolution, particularly neo-Darwinism. He isn't much of a fan of Dawkins.

He was once half of the duo who were in the vanguard of comedy as the new rock and roll, but later stepped back from the limelight, producing thoughtful work on oil and the brain.
posted by 1head2arms2legs (32 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
That's you, that is.

(Sorry. Off the read TFA now...)
posted by billiebee at 4:45 AM on February 8, 2017 [11 favorites]


What I think Dawkins has done is brought back a particularly virulent form of original sin. He’s actually a deeply religious thinker – ‘We are born selfish therefore let us try to teach altruism’, 'If your genes are selfish, you are.' Not true.
Aargh.

I know Dawkins hasn't aged well, but "If your genes are selfish, you are" is still as much of a misunderstanding of the idea of the selfish gene as it was in 1976.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 5:14 AM on February 8, 2017 [53 favorites]


I find myself wondering who this man is and why I should give his ideas on evolution the time of day. Is he another one or those mildly-successful-performer-turned-pseudo-intellectual types?
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:51 AM on February 8, 2017 [8 favorites]


What A Thousand Baited Hooks said.

1) Dawkins' book's title is unfortunate, because one of the lessons of The Selfish Gene is how a disposition to altruism within families could be selected for in populations even assuming "selfish" genes that only want to propagate themselves.

2) Newman's reading (or assuming instead of reading) of Dawkins can only be obtuse or malicious. It's almost impossible to take away that conclusion if you actually read the book. The only excuse could be if the 1976 edition didn't have the Lewontin work yet, but that's an excuse for someone reading it before 1989, not for someone publishing in 2017.

3) Dawkins himself may not have aged well, but his early books have. While of late Richard Dawkins may have become a bit of an asshole (or let his inner asshole come out), The Selfish Gene is still a gem. Don't let yourself be pushed away by the man's public persona.
posted by kandinski at 5:52 AM on February 8, 2017 [28 favorites]


grumpybear69

Not an expert but he is Cambridge educated, became one of the most famous comedians in the UK alongside David Baddiel (the first comedians to sell out Wembley Arena - this was in the 90s). But unlike Baddiel shunned the fame to concentrate on more important matters.

He is an author as well.

Thanks for the reminder, I trust him enough to go through his catalogue on Youtube.
posted by TheDukeOfChalfont at 5:58 AM on February 8, 2017


Out of edit window: I read the book 15 years ago, so the Lewontin reference may be wrong. However, it took me close to 20 years to read the book precisely because of the misconception that Baited Hooks quoted: I thought it was a book about Hobbessian tooth-and-claw selfishness from the gene to the tribe, and it's anything but.
posted by kandinski at 5:59 AM on February 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm inclined to believe that his understanding of Dawkins is more nuanced than The large format Daily Mail Telegraph implies, because he doesn't strike me as either malicious or obtuse. It would be useful to see the actual thesis behind his disagreement, rather than the single phrase the interviewer tried to sum it up with.
posted by ambrosen at 6:02 AM on February 8, 2017 [4 favorites]


ambrosen: Sure, I should have said "Newman's *reported* reading".
posted by kandinski at 6:05 AM on February 8, 2017


What A Thousand Baited Hooks said.

If you want to read Dawkins, forget "The Selfish Gene" and read "The Extended Phenotype" instead. Same period and material only aimed at a scientifically literate audience and makes it very clear that what he's arguing is that evolutionary selection works at the level of individual genes rather than entire organisms; he uses this to criticize the then-prevalent Group Selection hypothesis. More nuanced, less sensation, demonstrates why Dawkins was one of the evolutionary biology stars of his generation (the 1970s).
posted by cstross at 6:09 AM on February 8, 2017 [20 favorites]


His suggested reading list:

"Mary Midgley's The Solitary Self - Darwin and the Selfish Gene

I love this magnificent book.

And here's a couple of free audio/ visual lectures you can find on iTunes."
posted by TheDukeOfChalfont at 6:14 AM on February 8, 2017


Hell, even Bertrand Russell could put together a five minute universe
posted by thelonius at 6:18 AM on February 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


It should be noted that while that dismissal of Dawkins is wrong and he was right to criticize group selection at the time, our understanding of evolution has moved along pretty far since then. Nowadays it's stuff like epigenetics, evo-devo, symbiosis, phenotypic plasticity, and genomics where the interesting stuff takes place, all of which is far cry from Dawkins-style selfish genery.

Here's a 2014 debate in the journal Nature about the need for a new, extended synthesis of evolutionary theory. It too gives a pretty good picture of where things are at. Dawkins is not mentioned - as he hasn't for a long time now.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 6:30 AM on February 8, 2017 [18 favorites]


I've been listening to people mischaracterize The God Delusion for ten years now, so I'm not inclined to pay heed to an appraisal of The Selfish Gene that doesn't match up with what I know of Dawkins's work. I haven't read The Selfish Gene, though—I always tell people to read The Blind Watchmaker: How the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design.
posted by Flexagon at 6:38 AM on February 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


One more thing for anyone interested in what is going on in evolution-world right now. Just last November there was a conference at the Royal Society called New trends in evolutionary biology: biological, philosophical and social science perspectives, and you can read the abstracts of the talks here (scroll down to Schedule of Talks, and click on the Show detail links).

(Also, niche construction. That also should go into the list of trendy evolution stuff.)
posted by Pyrogenesis at 6:40 AM on February 8, 2017 [5 favorites]


I agree that The Selfish Gene is a great book. I think it is easily forgotten what Dawkins states in the first chapter about selfish human behavior:
I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behavior. However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals. 'Special' and 'limited' are important words in the last sentence. Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense. This brings me to the first point I want to make about what this book is not. I am not advocating a morality based on evolution.* I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we as humans ought morally to behave. I stress this, because I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case. My own feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene's law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live. But unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop it being true. This book is mainly intended to be interesting, but if you would extract a moral from it, read it as a warning. Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to.
*The endnotes and the next paragraph both elaborate on the possibility of overcoming our selfish instincts by learning to be altruistic.
posted by TreeRooster at 7:26 AM on February 8, 2017 [8 favorites]


A Thousand Baited Hooks: I know Dawkins hasn't aged well, but "If your genes are selfish, you are" is still as much of a misunderstanding of the idea of the selfish gene as it was in 1976.

[ahem] I have read the book. It's wonderfully written, and even when it's wrong it's thought-provoking. But Dawkins' attitude was pretty clear:

"Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish."

He mooted the possibility of altruism, but the simplified equations that he understood - and explicated so well! - which assume infinite population sizes and completely random mating, predict that, while non-reciprocal altruism between unrelated individuals can evolve, it virtually never will. And the things he says about humans suggests that he doesn't think that we're one of the rare exceptions. We are born selfish, he says.

My quarrel with Dawkins - The Selfish Gene in particular - is with his first-year-physics-assume-a-spherical-cow approach to altruism in evolutionary biology. You know the guy I'm talking about: He says that he has the only possible right answer, because the equations prove it. What he doesn't understand is the simplified nature of the equations he's working with. What he ignores is the evidence that things are more complicated than his equations make them out to be.
posted by clawsoon at 7:48 AM on February 8, 2017 [8 favorites]


Nowadays it's stuff like epigenetics, evo-devo, symbiosis, phenotypic plasticity, and genomics where the interesting stuff takes place, all of which is far cry from Dawkins-style selfish genery.

Here's a 2014 debate in the journal Nature about the need for a new, extended synthesis of evolutionary theory. It too gives a pretty good picture of where things are at. Dawkins is not mentioned - as he hasn't for a long time now.


Thanks for the link, which looks like a good discussion.

But gene selection isn't an obsolete idea now, it's merely a trivial one that everyone knows is important. The other stuff gets discussed because it's new and there are lot of questions. As for not mentioning Dawkins--he's always been primarily a public figure, not a researcher.
posted by mark k at 8:02 AM on February 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


mark k: Thanks for the link, which looks like a good discussion. But gene selection isn't an obsolete idea now, it's merely a trivial one that everyone knows is important.

And yet the first couple of paragraphs of the linked Nature discussion are all about the fact that gene-centered selection is hotly debated ground right now:
Now mainstream evolutionary theory has come to focus almost exclusively on genetic inheritance and processes that change gene frequencies.

Yet new data pouring out of adjacent fields are starting to undermine this narrow stance.
The subject, which Dawkins did much to apparently lay to rest as solved and therefore trivial, is in the process of being de-trivialized.
posted by clawsoon at 8:13 AM on February 8, 2017 [4 favorites]


The word "selfish" is a poetic term when applied to genes. It's like describing a cloud as "lonely". Nice as a metaphor, but meaningless in a scientific context.
posted by Kattullus at 8:38 AM on February 8, 2017 [7 favorites]


mark k, there's quite a bit of truth to saying that gene-centric selectionism is not obsolete, it's just boring. But as always in such matters: devil, details, etc. For example, take the Baldwin effect, according to which behaviors learned by organisms is a driving force in evolution. Does that sound like good old-fashioned Lamarckism? Well... the Baldwin effect, once rejected in evolutionary theory, is now empirically confirmed, and accepted by everyone. In such cases, the genome functions basically as an after the fact recording mechanism which stabilizes changes that first occur on the phenotypic level and are inherited by non-genetic means. Is that still the same old genetic selectionism? That is exactly the sort of question the current debates are all about.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 8:47 AM on February 8, 2017 [5 favorites]


Speaking of the brain and evolution, I was thinking just the other day that the development of the brain was the AI Singularity for DNA. Before that, DNA stored all the knowledge, passed on all the knowledge, and made all the decisions. After that, DNA had to give up some of its decision-making power to a much faster learner, the same way that we might have to do if we ever achieve our own AI singularity.

The Nature article that Pyrogenesis linked to talks a bit about the implications of this in the "Inheritance beyond genes" section. Even if Dawkins' genes are inevitably destined to be selfish and extremely likely to promote selfish behaviour, they have given up their power to make many of those decisions. Genes still influence decisions, but in some species a much faster, more flexible learner and decision-maker has taken over the main role.

(Now I'm curious, though I'm going way off-topic: Has the role of horizontal gene transfer in altruism been studied? Because in some ways, the brain's ability to learn from individuals other than parents is analogous to that...)
posted by clawsoon at 8:55 AM on February 8, 2017 [9 favorites]


I hope I'm not posting too much, but I want to clarify that while I gave Baldwin's effect as an example, I don't think anyone really uses that concept much nowadays - it is very old and a limited and particular thing. The contemporary term of art for stuff like that in general is "phenotypic plasticity". Non-genetic heritance is called "epigenetic".
posted by Pyrogenesis at 8:58 AM on February 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


A good place to get up to speed on recent developments leaving Dawkins in the dust) is the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis website. The tone is measured.
posted by stonepharisee at 10:56 AM on February 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


Thanks for that link stonepharisee. Dawkins had done some good stuff over the years, but it's important to acknowledge that understanding of genetics and gene expression has changed a great deal since his landmark book over 40 years ago.

Newman's radio show is quite funny and well done - worth a listen in my opinion. His suggestion that cooperation between individual organisms does not mean going against biologically hard-wired self interest is, I think, an affirmative and timely one.
posted by 1head2arms2legs at 11:16 AM on February 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've never thought of Dawkins as a good way to understand evolution, but it was useful in understanding capitalism and the works of Ayn Rand.
posted by Stanczyk at 6:04 PM on February 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


And yet the first couple of paragraphs of the linked Nature discussion are all about the fact that gene-centered selection is hotly debated ground right now:
Now mainstream evolutionary theory has come to focus almost exclusively on genetic inheritance and processes that change gene frequencies.
My emphasis.

When one side in the debate is saying it's not just about gene frequencies and the other side is agreeing there's more going on but just not as enthusiastically, gene frequency analysis is the one area of evolution that is trivial in the sense I meant--everyone agrees it's useful and valid.

The subject, which Dawkins did much to apparently lay to rest as solved

Huh. I don't think we're disagreeing so much as starting completely different conversations. I can't even imagine someone claiming the subject (evolution) was "solved" let alone by Dawkins. There's always been so much unclear.

Thinking in terms of gene frequencies let people work through a certain type of previously challenging problem with remarkable ease. And it's held up well for the right kind of work as sequencing became cheaper, still leading to interesting results. (Kind of like isotopic analysis isn't as fascinating as it used to be as a method but still gets generates fascinating results).

But it is not some universal approach. It didn't make the "classical" approach of looking at the organism or population level attributes obsolete, and it most certainly doesn't render new discoveries about actual mechanisms of phenotypic expression uninteresting.

Maybe I'm hazy on the intellectual history, but I always thought of Dawkins' fame flowing from him not as a scientist but as a writer (admittedly one with more substance than a Malcolm Gladwell type). He had his pet topics but that was never more than a few strands in the tapestry.
posted by mark k at 9:00 PM on February 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


one with more substance than a Malcolm Gladwell type

Talk about damning with faint praise!
posted by 1head2arms2legs at 1:02 AM on February 9, 2017


Three days left to listen to the first episode on iPlayer! Any other sources?
posted by asok at 2:29 AM on February 9, 2017


I think the main reason so many people misunderstood The Selfish Gene was Dawkins' rhetorical approach. He starts out with the shock - Your genes are selfish! And that means you probably are too! - then spends the rest of the book explaining in great detail how he's using selfishness as a kind of metaphor which doesn't mean quite what it usually does. Unfortunately some people were so put off by the shock part that they seem to have read the rest in a spirit of deliberate incomprehension, if they read it at all.

(Of course, if Dawkins hadn't done this we might never have heard of him.)

Newman:
I’m arguing that cooperation drives evolution as much as competition – I’m not discounting competition but cooperation is there as well. Dawkins is a reactionary thinker and he does a lot of damage. The universe he imagines couldn’t exist for five seconds. People say “It’s the law of the jungle isn’t it?” “It’s dog eat dog.” Well dogs don’t eat dogs - very rarely.
Dawkins never denies the significance of cooperation. He spends a large part of the Selfish Gene discussing various ways that cooperation arises not so much despite genetic selfishness as because of it. What he says is unlikely to arise is non-reciprocal altruism towards unrelated (or insignificantly related) organisms, and even then he doesn't think it's impossible. Humans in particular appear to be capable of transcending this limitation - by donating blood, for example (p230 of my copy).

This was in part a response to the group selection hypothesis which was around at the time (as cstross mentions above). But I don't think the core of the argument has ever been convincingly refuted.

As for the extended evolutionary synthesis, I've never been able to work out exactly how it's supposed to be inconsistent with the gene-centred view of evolution, other than as a matter of emphasis. But the counterpoint in the Nature debate that Pyrogenesis posted earlier puts this much better than I can.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:52 AM on February 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


I like Newman (loved him in the early Mary Whitehouse Experience Days when I was a lad, and enjoy his later stuff). He is primarily a comedian and story teller with a penchant for grand theories (and using words like penchant). If you are sympathetic to his theory he is enjoyable and easy to listen to. If you are not then it can be grating.

His piece on 'Oil' was very much up my alley- a Billhicksian view on war and capitalism. Therefore I loved it. I only listened to the first Episode on 'Evolution', not I fear because it is any less funny or well constructed, but because I am somewhat unsympathetic to his conceit, so couldn't go along for the ride without going "hey wait a minute" every so often.

To be fair I suppose he is constrained somewhat by medium and audience. Middle brow culture has an assumption that Dawkins is the epitome of the 'red in tooth and claw' natural selection view and that by pointing out the flaws in Dawkins work (and, more often and easily, flaws in Dawkins' character and demenour) means that one is saying something profound about the whole field.

Perhaps in later episodes Newman pulls together a more balanced view and acknowledges the straw man tactics he uses to promote his (laudable) generous view of human nature. Interested if anyone who has listened to the later episodes could advise if it develops enough from the first episode to be worth trying.
posted by Gratishades at 2:59 AM on February 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Dawkins is basically a caricature of himself. Much like Neil deGrasse Tyson.
posted by New England Cultist at 9:38 AM on February 9, 2017


"Dawkins is basically a caricature of himself. Much like Neil deGrasse Tyson."

Like Carl Sagan before them.

I worry about this. Why does this have to happen? Ego? Over-exposure?
posted by Chitownfats at 10:23 AM on February 9, 2017


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