From Replicators to Heritably Varying Phenotypic Traits: The Extended Phenotype Revisited

摘要

It may seem somewhat odd to write about a book that was published 21 years ago, and when Kim Sterelny first suggested that I review again Dawkins' Extended Phenotype I was dubious. It has been a very influential book, and although not as widely read as The Selfish Gene, it has had, I think, as great an impact on biologists' work as its older sibling. Many reviews of the book have been written, and many scholars have referred to this book directly and indirectly. The point of view advocated in it - and it was, as Dawkins asserted at the very beginning of the book, openly a work of advocacy - has become mainstream among evolutionary theorists. There has been, as Dawkins hoped, a shift in perspective from the organism to the replicator as a unit of selection, and we are living in an intellectual atmosphere that is dominated by genetic and cultural replicators. Although this dominance has been challenged many times, it is today the most influential approach to evolution. Revisiting the book is therefore a daunting task, but it is also something that may be timely, for new ideas and new discoveries have emerged during the last 20 years, and some arguments have acquired a new significance (or insignificance).