Dawkins re-examined: Dawkins' legacy

Dawkins re-examined Dawkins' legacy 1st December 2022 Video courtesy of @TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas Dawkins' Selfish Gene has been hugely influential, both within evolutionary biology and in the wider public sphere. It's a beautifully simple story: genes and not organisms drive evolutionary change. But critics argue the story is simplistic. The effect of a gene is not always the same and as is dependent on its host and the cell environment. DNA does not come neatly divided into individual genes. And in 2010 the renowned biologist EO Wilson and others revived the case for group selection. Some are now arguing that the Selfish Gene paradigm is holding back medical research. Is it time to move on and acknowledge that Dawkins' theory is not the whole story? Might his theory be making a fundamental mistake in reducing humans to machines? Or does the Selfish Gene remain a remarkably powerful and accurate account of who we are? The Panel World-famous s