Abstract

Introduction. Gene-centrism, the idea that the genome is the most important factor in biology, is currently the predominant view among both biologists and the lay public. But gene-centric views rest on erroneous assumptions concerning the heritable transmission of information and the nature of causal explanation. Such views must be replaced with more inclusive theories of natural selection and developmental causation. ;Chapter I. The gene-centric approach to biology is shown to be the latest in a long series of attempts to explain biological form as the effect of monistic formal causes: from Aristotle's notions of vital heat to medieval theories of preformation to the internal programs of Roux. Although Driesch and Spemann laid bare the poverty of such views in the nineteenth century, the rediscovery of Mendelian genetics and the rapid rise of the new science it made possible has cloaked the monists' ideas in a newly respectable guise. ;Chapter II. In evolutionary theory, gene-centrism finds expression in the genic selectionism of Williams and Dawkins. Genic selectionists argue that all of natural selection should be interpreted as acting not on organisms or groups of organisms, but on the genes. However, the arguments used to motivate such a move are all inadequate. Moreover, there are some population-level traits which defy explanation in terms of the interests of "selfish genes". ;Chapter III. The central dogma of gene-centric biology--the Weissman doctrine--is both theoretically and empirically suspect. More recent attempts to defend the primacy of the genes in terms of the notion of replicators are also inappropriate, given the facts of extra-genetic inheritance and the causal interdependence of genetic and epigenetic factors. ;Chapter IV. Several different philosophical techniques for making causal selections in complex systems are considered. None of them is adequate for according the genes the kinds of privileged status the gene-centrists require. Covariance analysis can indicate causal situations wherein selection may be appropriate, but selection in such cases will be highly relative. A more holistic picture of the causal systems involved in development and evolution is required and the developmental systems approach provides this, though there are still unresolved problems with its application