The Strategy of the Genes Quotes

“The current theory of evolution attributes this process to the natural selection of random variations. In a certain sense this phrase probably conveys the essential truth about the nature of the processes concerned. It is, however, only too easy to accept it as an adequate answer to our questions, whereas it should really be taken as an introduction to a series of problems. As it stands, the first part of it, 'natural selection', is a tautology, and the second part, 'random variation', an equivocation.”
― C.H. Waddington, The Strategy of the Genes

“An epigenetic system which is relatively unresponsive to genetic variation must almost inevitably also show considerable stability in the face of environmental variations, since the environmental conditions must usually produce effects on the developing processes similar in kind to those which could be produced by gene alterations.”
― C.H. Waddington, The Strategy of the Genes

“Recently Watson and Crick have suggested that the nucleic acid of the genes is more probably in the form of two intertwining spirals. This model does not provide quite so simple a picture of the gene, since we are confronted with the difficulty of seeing how two intertwisted threads can not only reproduce themselves but then succeed in separating from one another. But even when this difficulty is overcome-and it does not seem insuperable-the change in our view of the basic structure of the gene seems to make no difference whatever to our understanding of the strategic results of gene-action which were mentioned above; it appears, in our present state of ignorance, quite irrelevant to them. Again, if we decide that selection operating on the genetic system of a population can bring about gradual alterations of the metric characteristics ofits individuals, it is more or less irrelevant to the evolutionary consequences of these changes whether they depend on a special class of gene-loci, such as the heterochromatic polygenes invoked by Mather, or on a special type of allele, such as the iso-alleles of Stern and others, or whether there is nothing very special about the genes at all, except that their effects are rather small. Again, the tactical problems, of immense interest as they are, and fundamentally important in their own context, are largely irrelevant to the strategic questions.”
― C.H. Waddington, The Strategy of the Genes