The Selfish Gene

23 flashcards · Biology · by lakesare

1. Apart from its academic interest, the human importance of this subject is obvious. It touches every aspect of our social lives, our loving and hating, fighting and cooperating, giving and stealing, our greed and our generosity. These are claims that could have been made for Lorenz's On Aggression, Ardrey's The Social Contract, and Eibl-Eihesfeldt's Love and Hate.

   The trouble with these books is that their authors got it totally and utterly wrong. They got it wrong because they misunderstood how evolution works. They made the erroneous assumption that the important thing in evolution is the good of the species (or the group) rather than the good of the individual (or the gene).

2. 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.

   Perhaps one reason for the great appeal of the group-selection theory is that it is thoroughly in tune with the moral and political ideals that most of us share. We may frequently behave selfishly as individuals, but in our more idealistic moments we honour and admire those who put the welfare of others first.

3. What is the answer of indivisual-selectionist to group-selectionists?

   The quick answer of the 'individual selectionist' to the argument just put might go something like this. Even in the group of altruists, there will almost certainly be a dissenting minority who refuse to make any sacrifice. If there is just one selfish rebel, prepared to exploit the altruism of the rest, then he, by definition, is more likely than they are to survive and have children. Each of these children will tend to inherit his selfish traits. After several generations of this natural sele…

4. Molecules

   The haemoglobin of our blood is a typical protein molecule. It is built up from chains of smaller molecules, amino acids, each containing a few dozen atoms arranged in a precise pattern. In the haemoglobin molecule there are 574 amino acid molecules. These are arranged in four chains, which twist around each other to form a globular three-dimensional structure of bewildering complexity

5. Aminoacids appear just through putting chemical compounds in a flask, and waiting for some time.

   Then the replicator would act as a template not for an identical copy, but for a kind of 'negative', which would in its turn re-make an exact copy of the original positive. For our purposes it does not matter whether the original replication process was positive-negative or positive-positive, though it is worth remarking that the modem equivalents of the first replicator, the DNA molecules, use positive-negative replication.

6. Just as protein molecules are chains of amino acids, so DNA molecules are chains of nucleotides.

   Our DNA lives inside our bodies. It is not concentrated in a particular part of the body, but is distributed among the cells.

7. The 46 chromosomes consist of 23 pairs of chromosomes. More usually when two alternative genes are not identical, the result is some kind of compromise-the body is built to an intermediate design or something completely different. When two genes, like the brown eye and the blue eye gene, are rivals for the same slot on a chromosome, they are called alleles of each other.

   We receive each chromosome intact from one of our two parents, in whose testis or ovary it was assembled. Volumes 1a, 2a, 3a, ... came, say, from the father. Volumes 1b, 2b, 3b,... came from the mother. It is very difficult in practice, but in theory you could look with a microscope at the 46 chromosomes in any one of your cells, and pick out the 23 that came from your father and the 23 that came from your mother. Therefore every sperm cell made by an individual is unique, even though all his s…

8. It means that if you got out your microscope and looked at the chromosomes in one of your own sperms (or eggs if you are female) it would be a waste of time trying to identify chromosomes that originally came from your father and chromosomes that originally came from your mother.

   Any one chromosome in a sperm would be a patchwork, a mosaic of maternal genes and paternal genes.

9. Name four major types of macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life.

   hj

10. What a genes?

    Genes are long snippets of DNA. They are also the most basic unit of inheritance. In the title of this book the word gene means not a single cistron but something more subtle. My definition will not be to everyone's taste, but there is no universally agreed definition of a gene.A gene is defined as any portion of chromosomal material that potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection. In the words of the previous chapter, a gene is a replicator with high copyi…

11. What is chromosome?

    Chromosomes contain many genes.

12. How many chromosomes to humans have?

    46

13. How many chromosome do you inherit from your mother?

    23 chromosomes from mother, and 23 chromosomes from father.

14. There are 23 chromosome pairs. Each pair has 1 chromosome from father, and 1 chromosome from mother.

15. This is two chromosomes (one pair!). Both of them have a section of the PTC sensitvity.

16. Punnett square

17. What is this?

    A single chromosome, consisting of 2 Chromatids!

18. What's an enzyme?

    Catalysts that accelerate chemical reactions. Almost all metabolic processes in the cell need enzyme catalysis in order to occur at rates fast enough to sustain life.

19. What is alleles?

    Two copies of the same gene, located on the chromosome. Explained in greater detail, each gene resides at a specific locus (location on a chromosome) in two copies, one copy of the gene inherited from each parent. The copies, however, are not necessarily the same. When the copies of a gene differ from each other, they are known as alleles.

20. What are proteins?

    Macromolecules, made of one/multiple aminoacids The best-known role of proteins in the cell is as enzymes, which catalyse chemical reactions. Amino acids are organic compounds that contain amine (-NH2) and carboxyl (-COOH) functional groups, along with a side chain (R group) specific to each amino acid.[1][2] The key elements of an amino acid are carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N), although other elements are found in the side chains of certain amino acids.

21. . We saw that some people regard the species as the unit of natural selection, others the population or group within the species, and yet others the individual. I said that I preferred to think of the gene as the fundamental unit of natural selection, and therefore the fundamental unit of self-interest.

22. Genes for sharp, meat-eating teeth are not inherently bad genes. They are only bad genes in a gene-pool that is dominated by genes for herbivorous qualities.

23. Left at: file:///Users/lakesare/Downloads/[Richard_Dawkins]_The_Selfish_Gene(BookFi).pdf

    I have a hunch that we may come to look back on the invention of the ESS concept as one of the most important advances in evolutionary theory since Darwin. It is applicable wherever we find conflict of interest, and that means almost everywhere. Students of animal behaviour have got into the habit of talking about something called 'social organization'. Too often the social organization of a species is treated as an entity in its own right, with its own biological 'advantage'. An example I have…