Is It Possible to Replicate a Genome?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

In some sense, a you think of old biology as slightly different. Thes whole vocabulary of a gens as replicators and organisms as just the vehicles all the organisms are or busses to carry on genes from generation to generation. But even if the two views, like dawkins originally said, are more or less equivalent, it still can bring conceptual insight if you have a different way of formalizing the same set of ideas.

One of the brilliant achievements of Darwin’s theory of natural selection was to help explain apparently “purposeful” or “designed” aspects of biology in a purely mechanistic theory of unguided evolution. Features are good if they help organisms survive. But should we put organisms at the center of our attention, or the genetic information that governs those features? Arvid Ågren helps us understand the attraction of the “selfish gene” view of evolution, as well as its shortcomings. This biological excursion has deep connections to philosophical issues of levels and emergence.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Arvid Ågren received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. He is currently a Wenner-Gren Fellow at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. Previously he worked at Cornell and Harvard. His recent book is The Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.