Species as Individuals in the Hierarchical Theory of Selection 643
of information). If genes can't claim exclusivity (or even causal status at all) as
units of selection in the usual domain of material objects, then Williams would
establish a new and separate hierarchy for nonmaterial units of information—and
here the gene could continue to reign.
Williams therefore proposed a fundamental distinction between entities and
information, speaking of "two mutually exclusive domains of selection, one that
deals with material entities and another that deals with information and might be
termed the codical domain" (1992, p. 10). But I do not think that the codical
domain can claim either meaning or existence as a locus for causal units of
selection, for two reasons:
ODD MAPPING UPON LEGITIMATE INTUITIONS. Williams continues his
allegiance to the nemesis of gene selectionism, the false criterion that has always
doomed the theory to incoherence: faithful replication as the defining property for
a "unit of selection"—now reformatted as a unit that only exists in the newly
formulated codical domain, for Williams has now admitted that replicators are not
causal agents in the usual realm of material entities. Williams promotes his old
standard—faithful replication—as the primary criterion for "unithood" in his
codical domain, thus leading to the following peculiar position: genes are units of
selection (as the replicating consequence in the codical domain of selection upon
organisms in the material domain); gene pools are also units of selection (as
replicating consequences of higher-level selection upon groups to clades); but
genotypes, in an intermediate category, are not units of selection (except in asexual
organisms, where replication is faithful). Thus the codical domain skips a space in
the hierarchy, and contains no organismic level of selection (except for asexual
creatures) because the corresponding codex is impersistent.
THE OLD ERROR OF CONFUSING BOOKKEEPING WITH CAUSALITY. Williams's
complex move in devising a separate hierarchy for nonmaterial units of
information (and then juxtaposing this new sequence against the conventional
hierarchy of evidently material and admittedly causal units), amounts to little
beyond an elaborate and superfluous effort to rescue the un-salvageable theory of
gene selectionism by granting both primacy and causal status (but only
linguistically) to genes as replicators. But nothing new has been added beyond
some terminology. The old error remains in full force—if anything even
heightened by the counterintuitive complexities and mental manipulations required
operationalizing the scheme of dual hierarchies. A parallel hierarchy for
nonmaterial entities of information? What can such a claim mean? Take the idea
apart; pull the codical clothing off this new emperor, and whom do we find naked
underneath? our old friend, the bookkeeper. Why must he continually try to play
on the field of material objects engaged in nature's grand game of causality? Why
should he be ashamed of his vital but different role? Bookkeeping is also a
necessary, and entirely honorable, activity. The results of causal processes must be
tabulated, and we rightly treasure the lists. We continue to stand in awe before "60"
in Babe Ruth's home run column for 1927, and "70" in Mark McGwire's for 1998.
But 70 is a record, not a cause—a summary of a great achievement, not the