Abstract
This paper evaluates and criticises the developmental systems conception of evolution and develops instead an extension of the “gene's eye” conception of evolution. We argue (i) Dawkin's attempt to segregate developmental and evolutionary issues about genes is unsatisfactory. On plausible views of development it is arbitrary to single out genes as the units of selection. (ii) The genotype does not carry information about the phenotype in any way that distinguishes the role of the genes in development from that other factors. (iii) There is no simple and general causal criterion which distinguishes the role of genes in development and evolution. (iv) There is, however, an important sense in which genes but not every other developmental factor represent the phenotype. (v) The idea that genes represent features of the phenotype forces us to recognise that genes are not the only, or almost the only, replicators. Many mechanisms of replication are involved in both development and evolution. (vi) A conception of evolutionary history which recognises both genetic and non-genetic replicators, lineages of replicators and interactors has advantages over both the radical rejection of the replicator/interactor distinction and the conservative restriction of replication to genetic replication.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bateson, P.: 1976, ‘Specificity and the Origins of Behavior’,Advances in the Study of Behavior 6, 1–20.
Bateson, P.: 1978, ‘Review of The Selfish Gene’,Animal Behaviour 26, 316–318.
Bateson, P.: 1983, ‘Genes, Environment and the Development of Behaviour’, in Slater, P. and Halliday, T. (eds.),Animal Behaviour: Genes, Development and Learning, Blackwell.
Bateson, P.: 1991, ‘Are There Principles of Behavioural Development?’, in Bateson, P. (ed.),The Development and Integration of Behaviour, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 19–39.
Brandon, R.: 1990,Adaptation and Environment, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Buss, L.: 1987,The Evolution of Individuality, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Cairns-Smith, G.: 1982,Genetic Takeover and the Mineral Origins of Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Clayton, D. and Harvey, P.: 1993, ‘Hanging Nests on a Phylogenetic Tree’,Current Biology 3, 882–883.
Dawkins, R.: 1976,The Selfish Gene(second edition 1989), Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Dawkins, R.: 1982,The Extended Phenotype, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Dickson, M.: 1992, ‘ The Death of the Organism or The Selfish Nest’,Paper to AAP (NZ).
Fodor, J.: 1990,A Theory of Content and Other Essays, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Fogle, T.: 1990, ‘Are Genes Units of Inheritance’,Biology and Philosophy 5, 349–372.
Glover, D., Gonzales, C. and Raff, J.: 1993, ‘The Centrosome’,Scientific American 268, 32–39.
Goodwin, B.: 1989, ‘Unicellular Morphogenesis’, in Stein, W.D. and Bonner, F. (eds.),Cell Shape, Academic Press, New York.
Grant, T.: 1989,The Platypus: A Unique Mammal, New Wales University Press, Kensington, Sydney.
Gray, R.: 1992, ‘The Death of the Gene’, in Griffiths, P. (ed.),Tress of Life: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 165–210.
Griesemer, J.: ‘The Informational Gene and the Substantial Body: On the Gneralization of Evolutionary Theory By Abstraction’, forthcoming in Cartwright, N. and Jones, M. (eds.),Varieties of Idealisation, Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of Sciences and the Humanities, Amsterdam.
Griffiths, P. and Gray, R.: 1993, ‘Individuating Developmental Systems’,Paper to the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology, Boston.
Griffiths, P. and Gray, R.: 1994, ‘Developmental Systems and Evolutionary Explanation’,Journal of Philosophy 91, 277–304.
Hull, D.: 1984, ‘Units of Evolution: A Metaphysical Essay’, in Jensen, R. and Harre, R. (eds.),The Philosophy of Evolution, Harvester, Brighton; reprinted in Brandon, R. and Burian, R. (eds.),Genes, Organisms Populations, MIT Press 1984.
Hull, D.: 1988,Science as a Process, Chicago University Press, Chicago.
Johnston, T.: 1987, ‘The Persistence of Dichotomies in the Study of Behavioural Development’,Developmental Review 7, 149–182.
Johnston, T.: 1988, ‘Developmental Explanation and The Ontogeny of Birdsong: Nature/Nuture Redux’,Behavioral and Brain Sciences 11, 617–663.
Keller, L. and Ross, G.: 1993, ‘Phenotypic Plasticity and ‘Cultural Transmission’ in the Fire AntSolenopsis Invicta’,Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology 33, 121–129.
Lewontin, R.: 1985, ‘The Organism as the Subject and Object of Evolution’, in Levins, Richards and Lewontin, Richard (eds.),The Dialectical Biologist, Harvard University Press.
Lloyd, E.: 1992, ‘sUnit of Selection’, in Fox Keller E., Lloyd, E. (eds.),Keywords In Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Majerus, M. and Hurst, G.: 1993, ‘Weird Genetics? Evolution and Nonmendelian Genes’,Trends in Ecology and Evolution 8, 310–311.
Millikan, R.: 1989, ‘In Defense of Proper Functions’,Philosophy of Science 56, 288–302.
Millikan, R.: 1991, ‘Speaking Up for Darwin’, in Loewer, B. and Rey, G. (eds.),Meaning in Mind: Fodor and his Critics, Blackwell.
Morgan, N. and Baumann, P.: 1994, ‘Phylogenetics of Cytoplasmically Inherited Microorganisms of Arthropods’,Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9, 15–20.
Moss, L.: 1992, ‘A Kernel of Truth? On the Reality of the Genetic Program’, in Hull, D., Forbes, M. and Okruhlik, K. (eds.),Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, volume one, pp. 335–348.
Oyama, S.: 1985,The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Reilly, P.: 1981,The Lyrebird, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, Sydney.
Smith, K.: 1992, ‘The New Problem of Genetics: A Response to Gifford’,Biology and Philosophy 7, 331–348.
Smith, K.: 1993a, ‘Neo-Rationalism Versus Neo-Darwinism: Integrating Development and Evolution’,Biology and Philosophy 7, 431–452.
Smith, K.: 1993b, ‘The Effects of Temperature and Daylength on the Rosa Polyphenism in the Buckeye Butterfly,Precis coenia (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)’,Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera 30, 225–236.
Smith, K.: 1994,The Emperor's New Genes: The Role of the Genome in Development and Evolution, Ph.D Dissertation, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
Sober, E.: 1990, ‘The Poverty of Pluralism: A Reply to Sterelny and Kitcher’,Journal of Philosophy 87, 151–158.
Sterelny, K. and Kitcher, P.: 1988, ‘The Return of the Gene’,Journal of Philosophy 85, 339–361.
Sultan, S.: 1987, ‘Evolutionary Implications of Phenotypic Plasticity in Plants’, in Hecht, M., Watson, B. and Prance, G. (eds.),Evolutionary Biology 21, 127–178.
Wagner, G.P.: 1988, ‘The Vexing Role of Replicators in Evolution’,Biology and Philosophy 3, 322–336.
Werren, J.H.: 1991, ‘The Paternal Sex Ratio Chromosome ofNasonia’,American Naturalist 137, 392–402.
Wimsatt, W.: 1991, ‘The Units of Selection and the Structure of the Multi-Level Genome’, in Asquith, P. and Giere, R. (eds.),Proceedings of the PSA 1980, Volume 2, Philosophy of Science Association, East Lansing.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sterelny, K., Smith, K.C. & Dickison, M. The extended replicator. Biol Philos 11, 377–403 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00128788
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00128788