Dawkins’s paradox: dissecting the body’s battle to keep selfish genes in check
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Illustration: Claire Welsh/Nature; Adapted from Getty
The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict J. Arvid Ågren and Manus M. Patten (eds) Harvard Univ. Press (2025)
Some thirty-five years ago, biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase “paradox of the organism” to encapsulate a conundrum. If genes are ‘selfish’ — driven to increase their own chances of being transmitted to the next generation — some of them might act in ways that harm the organism as a whole.
For example, sections of DNA can ‘jump’ to different parts of the genome, copying themselves into other locations and, thus, shuffling genetic material. Such ‘jumping genes’ constitute nearly half of the human genome and are crucial for driving evolution and increasing genetic diversity. But they can also cause harmful mutations, and even cancer, when their insertion disrupts key genes that regulate cell growth.
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