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Elusive vehicles of genetic representation

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Abstract

The teleosemantic theory of representational content is held by some philosophers to imply that genes carry semantic information about whole-organism phenotypes. In this paper, I argue that this position is not supported by empirical findings. I focus on one of the most elaborate defenses of this position: Shea’s (Biol Philos 22:313–331, 2007a, Br J Philos Sci 64:1–31, 2013a) view that genes represent whole-organism phenotypes. I distinguish between two ways of individuating genes in contemporary biological science as possible vehicles of representational content—as molecular genes and as difference-maker genes. I show that given either of these ways of individuating genes, genes fail to meet conditions which the teleosemantic theory requires an entity to meet if that entity is to qualify as a representational vehicle that represents a whole-organism phenotype. The considerations I present against Shea’s view generalize to other attempts to use the teleosemantic theory in support of the claim that genes represent whole-organism phenotypes.

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Notes

  1. Whether the teleosemantic criteria are satisfied for the thesis that genes represent some lower-than-organism-level phenotypes, for example, gene products, is a separate question that is outside the scope of this paper (see Godfrey-Smith 2007 for discussion).

  2. Infotel semantics combines this teleosemantic core with the requirement that the state must also carry correlational information about the success conditions of the consumer behaviour.

  3. The term ‘basic representationalist model’ is adopted from Godfrey-Smith (2006). Shea (2013a) explicitly quotes from Godfrey-Smith when presenting his account of genetic representation.

  4. Throughout the paper, I use the notation <a; b!> to denote the content of a gene as a representational vehicle. The a corresponds to the indicative aspect of the content and the b! to the imperative aspect. This is an adaptation of the notation employed in the literature on propositional content.

  5. Shea (2007a) stresses that the representational properties of genes can figure only in phylogenetic explanations of the recurring development of adaptive phenotypes but not in developmental explanations. However, see Shea (2013a) for a concession.

  6. Griffiths and Stotz (2013) use the term ‘instrumental gene’ instead of ‘difference-maker gene’. I prefer the latter because it leaves room for different, more or less instrumentalist interpretations of what a gene individuated through its phenotypic effect is.

  7. One might be skeptical about whether postgenomic genes are sufficiently discrete and spatially cohesive entities to appease a realist about genetic representation. The gravity of this concern depends on how liberal one is, ontologically speaking. For example, if one is willing to accept connectionist accounts of distributed representation in which content vehicles are identified with spread-out neural activation patterns, there should be no reason to discard postgenomic genes as insufficiently real and distinct representational vehicles. I will assume that postgenomic genes are indeed sufficiently real content vehicle candidates.

  8. Those cases of selection that have been studied most thoroughly are those where the heritable genetic difference-maker with regards to a trait is indeed some molecular gene, or a small number of molecular genes at a compact locus. The main reason for this is simply that the genetic underpinnings of these kinds of adaptations have been the easiest to detect (Dayan et al. 2019).

  9. Polygenic adaptation has also been studied in unicellular organisms, such as bacteria (Arnold et al. 2018) and yeast (García-Ríos et al. 2017).

  10. A possible response would be to restrict the intended explanandum of the teleosemantic account of genetic representation by excluding polygenically selected phenotypes from it. However, this exclusion would seem arbitrary, given that the basic physical mechanism that transmits phenotypes from generation to generation is the same for both polygenic and monogenic phenotypes.

  11. Although pleiotropy is pervasive in complex organisms, it is also present in prokaryotes such as bacteria (e.g., Knight et al. 2006).

  12. The following considerations also apply when selection acts on phenotypic variation that is caused by standing genetic variation.

  13. The question is also conceptual since it turns on how to individuate, and thus count, phenotypic traits.

  14. Even if it turns out that the phenomenon is, as a matter of empirical fact, not that common, there is no reason why, in principle, it could not be common. It would be ad hoc to make the presence of representation in the genetic inheritance system dependent upon contingent system-external empirical factors.

  15. This is how Dawkins (1976) defines the units of selection.

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Acknowledgements

I want to thank Karola Stotz for her encouragement and feedback. I am also grateful to Alex Davies, Viia Kõiv, Taavi Laanpere, Endla Lõhkivi, Tanel Tenson and Uku Tooming for discussions and support over the period of writing the paper, to the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their very helpful comments and suggestions on the previous draft of this paper. I also thank Alex Davies, Jaana Eigi and Taavi Laanpere for proofreading the paper. This research was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (Funder ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003510, Projects PRG462 “Philosophical analysis of interdisciplinarity” and IUT20-5 “Disagreements: Philosophical Analysis“), the Archimedes Foundation, and the Estonian Research Competency Council (Funder ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100005189, Grant Number: SHVHV16145T (TK145) “Centre of Excellence in Estonia”).

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    Riin Kõiv

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Kõiv, R. Elusive vehicles of genetic representation. Biol Philos 35, 24 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-020-9741-8

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