“Genes do indeed behave as if they have selfish goals, not consciously, but retrospectively: genes that behave in this way thrive and genes that don’t don’t.”

—  Matt Ridley , book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 8 “Self-Interest” (p. 128)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 26, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Genes do indeed behave as if they have selfish goals, not consciously, but retrospectively: genes that behave in this w…" by Matt Ridley?
Matt Ridley photo
Matt Ridley 65
economist 1958

Related quotes

Richard Dawkins photo

“… a gene might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other bodies. If so, this would appear as individual altruism but it would be brought about by gene selfishness.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 6. Genesmanship

Eric R. Kandel photo

“Jacob and Monod found that in bacteria, genes are switched on and off by other genes. This led them to distinguish between effector genes and regulatory genes. Effector genes encode effector proteins… which mediate specific cellular functions. Regulatory genes encode proteins called regulatory proteins, which switch the effector genes on or off.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)

Eric R. Kandel photo

“Jacob and Monod not only outlined a theory of gene regulation, they also discovered the first regulators of gene transcription. These regulators come in two forms—repressors, genes that encode the regulatory proteins that shut genes off, and as later work showed, activators, genes that encode the regulatory proteins that turn genes on.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)

Jane Roberts photo

“The consciousness of being human was fully developed in the cave man, of course, but the human conception was alive in the fish. We have spoken of mental genes. These are more or less psychic blueprints for physical matter, and in these mental genes existed the pattern for your type of self-consciousness.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 159, quoting from Seth Session 26

Steven Crowder photo

“At our first rehearsal, I remember our director telling me “You know, Steven… You don’t have to do a Gene Wilder impression.” I asked “Why not?!””

Steven Crowder (1987) American actor

To this day, the answer to that question is simple: because nobody could do it better.

Gene Vincent photo

“I hope my fans remember my name is Gene Vincent and not Gene Autry.”

Gene Vincent (1935–1971) American musician

As quoted in Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran: Rock'n'roll Revolutionaries (2004) by by John Collis, p. 181

Matt Ridley photo

“The main purpose of most genes in the human genome is regulating the expression of other genes in the genome.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 10 “Stress” (p. 150)

“Complex organisms cannot be construed as the sum of their genes, nor do genes alone build particular items of anatomy or behavior by themselves. Most genes influence several aspects of anatomy and behavior—as they operate through complex interactions with other genes and their products, and with environmental factors both within and outside the developing organism. We fall into a deep error, not just a harmful oversimplification, when we speak of genes “for” particular items of anatomy or behavior.”

Stephen Jay Gould book I Have Landed

"The Without and Within of Smart Mice", p. 234 (originally appeared in Time, 1999-09-13)
I Have Landed (2002)

Dean Ornish photo

“When you eat a healthy, whole foods, plant-based diet, it changes the expression of your genes. It turns on the good genes, turns off the bad genes. Your genes are a predisposition, but your genes are not your fate. And even if your mother and your father and aunts and uncles all died of diabetes, cancer, even heart disease, it doesn't mean that you need to.”

Dean Ornish (1953) American physician

Interview in the documentary-film The Game Changers by Louie Psihoyos (2018).

Ernst Mayr photo

“The idea that a few people have about the gene being the target of selection is completely impractical; a gene is never visible to natural selection, and in the genotype, it is always in the context with other genes, and the interaction with those other genes make a particular gene either more favorable or less favorable. In fact, Dobzhanksy, for instance, worked quite a bit on so-called lethal chromosomes which are highly successful in one combination, and lethal in another. Therefore people like Dawkins in England who still think the gene is the target of selection are evidently wrong. In the 30s and 40s, it was widely accepted that genes were the target of selection, because that was the only way they could be made accessible to mathematics, but now we know that it is really the whole genotype of the individual, not the gene. Except for that slight revision, the basic Darwinian theory hasn't changed in the last 50 years”

Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) German-American Evolutionary Biologist

Part of the answer to the question "Where do you think Darwinism is going to go in the next 50 years?"
What evolution is: Talk with Ernst Mayr (2001)

Related topics