Are genes a product of evolution or is evolution a product of genes?

Read Darwin’s Table, a book by Korean professor Daeik Jang, to find out whether genes are a product of evolution or evolution is a product of genes.

 

After Darwin’s Origin of Species, the concept of ‘evolution’ was introduced to the birth and development of life. Darwin’s concept of evolution brilliantly explained the differentiation and development of species from the perspective of individuals. About 130 years later, the concept of evolution has been expanded, and modern evolutionists use the concept of evolution to explain human behavior and ways of life. I will argue that genes are a product of evolution, especially in the context of the explanation of altruistic behavior.
In the second thesis of Darwin’s Table, The Evolution of Cooperation, several scientists provide explanations for animal behavior that defy common sense. The basic flow of the book is a debate between two evolutionary theorists, Dawkins and Gould. The book is a great way to learn about different perspectives, as each side has a different point of view. However, only part two is dominated by Dawkins’s genetic theory. In particular, Dawkins, a popular and prominent evolutionist, analyzes the causes of animal behavior from the perspective of genes, citing many examples from The Selfish Gene. The main argument of Dawkins and his team is the determinism of genes: they argue that the concept of genes, which are not even precisely defined, is responsible for all life phenomena. In this article, I will use the biological concept of a gene to avoid conflicting evolutionary concepts. A gene is a sequence of bases in DNA that encodes a specific trait.
Dawkins’ analysis of animal behavior through the lens of genes is groundbreaking. From the point of view of the individual, the non-sexual and absolutely altruistic behavior of social insects makes perfect sense from the point of view of genes. ‘Genes govern evolution beyond life,’ Dawkins’s team argues. But I think Dawkins’ claim that genes rule everything is no different from Descartes’ determinism. Descartes’ determinism begins with the thesis that all future shapes are influenced by previous events. From this argument, simple mathematical induction leads to the conclusion that everything that will happen is already determined. Mathematical induction is a method of proving that if a causal relationship is established between the first term and two consecutive terms, then the causal relationship will continue until the end. A narrow application of this theory at the genetic level is that the genes of the parents’ generation are an “immortal coil” that continues to influence future generations. Parents’ genes are passed down to their offspring in an unchanged sequence, meaning that genes determine all current behavior, determine the mates they will pass on to future generations, and determine all future behavior. While genetic determinism can explain altruistic behavior in some ways, it has a major drawback in that it fails to attach any meaning to altruistic behavior, meaning that altruistic behavior that should be morally praiseworthy is reduced to mere predetermined behavior and cannot trigger any moral motivation.
Furthermore, Dawkins’ theory does not fully explain altruistic behavior: his theory reduces all life phenomena to genes. The great advantage of reductionism is that it provides an easy and convincing explanation for complex phenomena. But, as Gould points out, reduction introduces distortions. The altruistic behavior of animals is easily explained by reductionism. The problem with Dawkins’ theory is that it doesn’t explain altruistic human behavior. I personally believe that science is a discipline of interpretation. The job of science is to develop theories to explain phenomena. Newton created the equation of motion, F=ma, to simplify the physical laws of the world, and it worked well for a long time. However, it was later superseded by quantum mechanics, which provided a more comprehensive and detailed description of the microscopic world that Newtonian mechanics missed. I think Dawkins’ theory of genetics is about where Newton’s work was in the development of evolutionary theory: it explains most of the macroscopic world remarkably well, but there are too many things that are difficult to explain when you look at them in detail. The altruistic behavior of many animals can be clearly “explained” by a simple genetic theory, but the complex and nuanced behavior of humans requires a theory as complex as quantum mechanics. For example, Father Maximilian Kolbe died for the Jews during World War II while childless. His genes didn’t benefit from his death, but it’s a stretch to say that only human genes are organized inefficiently.
If the whole of humanity is food, then genes are the ingredients. Depending on how you cook with these ingredients, you can either make a cake or an ice cream. For humans, cooking is the environment. The environment, both in vitro and extracellular, determines which genes are expressed. In the end, we can say that external pressures influence genes rather than genes determining the course of evolution.
The truth is that evolution is not yet a complete theory. Many scientists have developed their own interpretations of evolution, placing it within a larger framework. Dawkins’ theory of genetics is certainly a big discovery and has changed much of evolutionary theory. However, his reductionist ideas are insufficient to explain the complexity of life. When thinking about the concept of evolution, focusing on the smallest thing, the gene, can cause us to miss the bigger picture, such as the development of morality, the development of culture, and so on. My title, “Are genes the product of evolution or is evolution the product of genes,” was a catch-22 for evolutionists. But I don’t think either answer is perfect, and in the end, evolution is not the product of genes, but rather the interaction of genes with their environment to create the big picture of evolution.