[PanAtheist]

Winning genes commonly act as team-players.
Their winning plays are salvations of an aliveness of which they are a part.
A fraction of genes are parasitic (they parasitize teams).

lostsheep wrote

Cool! Where did you get this?

Thank you!
I am glad you like it! That’s me talking!
Still, the space-constraints of the “signature box” did make me be a tad simplistic.
If I had more space, I’d say >>

Vital genes act as a team,
which sustains the aliveness of which they are a part.

Beneficial genes act as part of that team,
helping the alivenesses of which they are a part.

All these genes are teamish!

They are team-players, and their winning-plays are salvations and/or promotions of the alivenesses of which they are a part.

Detrimental genes act against such a team of aliveness-sustaining genes, and damage (or damage the chances of) the aliveness which is sustaining them. They may damage it so much that the aliveness dies, and they too are lost!

Neutral genes neither help nor harm.

Parasitic genes, such as jumping-genes, parasitize an organism’s team of genes.

Viral genes are themselves members of a team – the viral genome.

Even kin-killing genetic elements (which some call “selfish genes” ‡), that target and kill siblings which lack that genetic element, are teamish in the sense that they aid the teams of genes which contain copies of them.



The reason beneficial genes are teamish, is that one gene can accomplish very little on its own.

Aliveness is a team effort!

An organism's genes survive via aliveness
(or “viability” in the case of viruses, and seeds, etc).

Dawkins says that we are “gene-survival machines”.
But this is a myopic, blinkered view of aliveness.
The truth is :
aliveness acts as an aliveness-sustaining “machine”



Aliveness is a multi-reactant physico-chemical chain-reaction
which (with a dash of luck!) sustains itself!



A human child holds neither all the genes of its mother, nor all the genes of its father.
So much for gene survival!
But it *is* a continuation and salvation of both their alivenesses.


Biology, is (surprisingly for some!) about ...
LIFE ! :-)



‡ I am well aware that many apply this phrase more widely that that.