Vision and Evolution (A Critique of Dawkins)

[John 6IX Breezy]

The [b]phenotype[/b] (from Greek [i]phainein[/i], meaning 'to show', and [i]typos[/i], meaning 'type') of an organism is the composite of the organism's observable characteristics or traits, including its morphology or physical form and structure; its developmental processes; its biochemical and physiological properties; its behavior, and the products of behavior, for example, a bird's nest.

So a nest is not part of a bird but because birds make them it is part of its phenotype. It is a product of their behaviour.

So again behaviour IS part of the phenotype because its in the definition of phenotype.

My confusion arises from Dawkin's (2016) definition of phenotype:

"The manifested attributes of an organism, the joint product of its genes and their environment during ontogeny. A gene may be said to have phenotypic expression in, say, eye colour. In this book the concept of phenotype is extended to include functionally important consequences of gene differences, outside the bodies in which the genes sit" (p. 449). 

And his definition of the extended phenotype:

"All effects of a gene upon the world. As always, ‘effect’ of a gene is understood as meaning in comparison with its alleles. The conventional phenotype is the special case in which the effects are regarded as being confined to the individual body in which the gene sits. In practice it is convenient to limit ‘extended phenotype’ to cases where the effects influence the survival chances of the gene, positively or negatively" (p. 443).

Unlike your definition, a bird's nest would not be traditionally considered part of the bird's phenotype; the idea of the extended phenotype is there to account for it. If a distinction is going to be made between an organism and its environment, it places behavior at an awkward crossroads between the two. For example, there is no gene that takes its expression by producing the English language; there are indeed genes correlated with verbal behaviors such as motor abilities or brain regions for producing language, but speaking English isn't the product of genes. Given your definition, speaking English is a unique trait from speaking Spanish and both are part of the organism's phenotype.

Reference: Dawkins, R. (2016). The extended phenotype. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Oh, stop with the lies. You know full well as you posted that it is Comfort and his baloney. If you really were unaware, you would never have made such a guess.

Comfort argued that the banana was designed by god to fit human anatomy. Embarassingly for him, it was pointed out that the banana had been genetically manipulated by humans to be what it is today. He even tried to pretend that it was part of a comedy routine when he was so embarrassingly found out.

But you clearly knew all of this before you posted. So what is your particular motivation for dishonesty?

Correct, knowing about Ray Comfort is why I assumed he's the referent of banana man. However, I'm unfamiliar with his story about male dogs. Therefore, asking Rahn127 to tell me the story is a reasonable thing to do, wouldn't you agree?