The Extended Phenotype
The Long Reach of the Gene
Dawkins's own favourite of his books: genes express themselves beyond the body, in dams, nests and the behaviour of others.
Dawkins’s own favourite among his books, and the one written for biologists. The argument is that a gene’s phenotype does not stop at the body it sits in: the beaver’s dam, the caddis fly’s case, the manipulated behaviour of a parasitised host are all products of genes acting on the world beyond their own organism. Dawkins uses the idea to answer critics of The Selfish Gene and to dissolve the question of where the individual ends.
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Carl Zimmer
In this book Dawkins took this argument to the next level. He said that when we think of the phenotype, we think about fur or eyesight or the red blood cell’s ability to take in oxygen. But genes influence behaviour, and so behaviour is part of the phenotype. And that behaviour allows animals to change their environment in ways that can then raise their reproductive success.
Interview · September 2012
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