The Extended Phenotype: the Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)
“I have made so much of the fragmenting effects of meiosis as a reason for not regarding sexually reproduced organisms as replicators, that it is tempting to see this as the only reason. If this were true, it should follow that asexually reproduced organisms are true replicators, and that where reproduction is asexual we could legitimately speak of adaptations as ‘for the good of the organism’. But the fragmenting effect of meiosis is not the only reason for denying that organisms are true repli...cators. There is a more fundamental reason, and it applies to asexual organisms as much as to sexual ones.
To regard an organism as a replicator, even an asexual organism like a female stick insect, is tantamount to a violation of the ‘central dogma’ of the non-inheritance of acquired characteristics. A stick insect looks like a replicator, in that we may lay out a sequence consisting of daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, etc., in which each appears to be a replica of the preceding one in the series.MoreLess
To regard an organism as a replicator, even an asexual organism like a female stick insect, is tantamount to a violation of the ‘central dogma’ of the non-inheritance of acquired characteristics. A stick insect looks like a replicator, in that we may lay out a sequence consisting of daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, etc., in which each appears to be a replica of the preceding one in the series.MoreLess
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