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experienced had any effect on those genes as they flowed through. Perhaps there is something a little sinister about that. But, however inexorable and undeviating the genes may be as they march down the generations, the nature of their phenotypic effects on the bodies they flow through is by no means inexorable and undeviating. If I am homozygous for a gene
G
, nothing save mutation can prevent my passing
G
on to all my children. So much is inexorable. But whether or not I, or my children, show the phenotypic effect normally associated with possession of
G
may depend very much on how we are brought up, what diet or education we experience, and what other genes we happen to possess. So, of the two effects that genes have on the world—manufacturing copies of themselves, and influencing phenotypes—the first is inflexible apart from the rare possibility of mutation; the second may be exceedingly flexible. I think a confusion between evolution and development is, then, partly responsible for the myth of genetic determinism.
    But there is another myth complicating matters, and I have already mentioned it at the beginning of this chapter. The computer myth is almost as deep-seated in the modern mind as the gene myth. Notice that both passages I quoted contain the word ‘programmed’. Thus Rose sarcastically absolved promiscuous men from blame because they are genetically
programmed
. Gould says that if we are
programmed
to be what we are then these traits are ineluctable. And it is true that we ordinarily use the word programmed to indicate unthinking inflexibility, the antithesis of freedom of action. Computers and ‘robots’ are, by repute, notoriously inflexible, carrying out instructions to the letter, even if the consequences are obviously absurd. Why else would they send out those famous million pound bills that everybody’s friend’s friend’s cousin’s acquaintance keeps receiving? I had forgotten the great computer myth, as well as the great gene myth, or I would have been more careful when I myself wrote of genes swarming ‘inside gigantic lumbering robots …’, and of ourselves as ‘survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes’ (Dawkins 1976a). These passages have been triumphantly quoted,and requoted apparently from secondary and even tertiary sources, as examples of rabid genetic determinism (e.g. ‘Nabi’ 1981). I am not apologizing for using the language of robotics. I would use it again without hesitation. But I now realize that it is necessary to give more explanation.
    From 13 years’ experience of teaching it, I know that a main problem with the ‘selfish-gene survival machine’ way of looking at natural selection is a particular risk of misunderstanding. The metaphor of the intelligent gene reckoning up how best to ensure its own survival (Hamilton 1972) is a powerful and illuminating one. But it is all too easy to get carried away, and allow hypothetical genes cognitive wisdom and foresight in planning their ‘strategy’. At least three out of twelve misunderstandings of kin selection (Dawkins 1979a) are directly attributable to this basic error. Time and again, non-biologists have tried to justify a form of group selection to me by, in effect, imputing foresight to genes: ‘The long-term interests of a gene require the continued existence of the species; therefore shouldn’t you expect adaptations to prevent species extinction, even at the expense of short-term individual reproductive success?’ It was in an attempt to forestall errors like this that I used the language of automation and robotics, and used the word ‘blindly’ in referring to genetic programming. But it is, of course, the genes that are blind, not the animals they program. Nervous systems, like man-made computers, can be sufficiently complex to show intelligence and foresight.
    Symons (1979) makes the computer myth explicit:
    I wish to point out that