Tim writes:

>As he says, his interpretation is an "absurdity".
>But Gould is attacking a straw man of his own making.
>Nobody using the "gene for X" terminology was ever
>asserting that single genes determined behaviour -
>and Gould should have been aware of that.

That's not quite true. Any number of authors have made similar statements.
Dawkins, for example, wrote quite explicitly the following in pages 64-66 of
his book, "The selfish gene":

"Honey bees suffer from an infectious disease called foul brood. This attacks
the grubs in their cells. Of the domestic breeds used by beekeepers, some are
more at risk from foul brood than others, and it turns, out the difference
between strains is, at least in some cases, a behavioural one. There are
so-called hygenic strains which quickly stamp out epidemics by locating
infected grubs, pulling them from their cells and throwing them out of the
hive. The susceptible strains are susceptible because they do not practise this
hygenic infanticide... Rothenbuhler surmised that there might be two separate
genes, one gene for uncapping, and one gene for throwing out... This story
illustrates a number of important points... It shows that it can be perfectly
proper to speak of 'a gene for behaviour so-and-so.'"

If you wish to read my response to this sort of loose speech, you may find it
at:

     http://aics-research.com/research/notes.html#IIIB

Wirt Atmar
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