Below I mentioned the doyen of living population geneticists, James Crow, yeah, Jim Crow. Collaborater with Motoo Kimura of Neutral Theory fame, Crow is still an active member of the biological community. Recently he reviewed Genes in Conflict : The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements by Bob Trivers & Austin Burt in Nature. He begins:
In the early 1970s, Robert Trivers published six articles on the evolution of social behaviour. They were ignored by most social scientists, who were reluctant to consider natural selection as a cause of human behavioural traits, and they were bitterly attacked by marxists for reasons of doctrine. Some population geneticists also objected, because Trivers did not formulate his concepts as standard equations for changes in allele frequency. Yet the papers have proved seminal, and Trivers is now recognized, along with Edward O. Wilson and Bill Hamilton, as one of the founders of behavioural evolution and sociobiology....
Just over ten years ago, Trivers joined forces with geneticist Austin Burt for a detailed study of selfish genetic elements, and Genes in Conflict is the result of their fruitful collaboration. The book is the first of its kind and admirably fills an empty niche.
Crow notes that Burt and Trivers reject the contention that selfish genetic elements might be adaptive. If you want to know why the authors might express this opinion, read the Wikipedia entry on intragenomic conflict.
For a new perspective that integrates "selfishness" at the genome and behavioral level, the following research report does so in the context of demonstrating that biological evolution corresponds to a specific abstraction of Shannon's communication theory:
http://www.steveflinn.com/Evolution_as%20Communication_MW-AS103%2003-29…
a bit off topic, but speaking of Trivers, you seen this?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WMD-4HCN3W6-…
Good food for thought.
Wow, thanks, Razib, for linking to Amazon.com for the *Genes in Conflict*. I don't buy or read many books, but this one has me tempted. Btw, that first reviewer left an interesting bunch of questions(from the book)
Steve Flinn, very nice stuff in that pdf. I think i remember seeing ID'ers use Shannon's Information theory in their arguments too. But don't mind them.
Thanks Boknekht for your nice comment. And yes -- I am mindful that when one uses terms such as "communication" and "message" in regard to explaining the underpinnings of evolution, these purely mathematical-based terms can be distorted into the most fantastic of supernatural stories about the origins of life . . .