tl;dr: There never was a paradox of the organism. It was just a mistake about genes. But genetic conflicts do occur and are fascinating.
This is also an invitation: if you like the selfish-gene idea, I'd love to hear why. What biological reality does the metaphor capture?
Philip Ball
I have read and enjoyed The Paradox of the Organism by @arvidagren.bsky.social and Manus Patten. I had a lot of thoughts about it, and about selfish genes. Here they are, in a long blog post.
homunculusmusic.wordpress.com/2026/05/30/i...
I’m reading The Paradox of the Organism, a set of collected essays on this notion edited by Arvid Ågren and Manus M. Patten. It’s tremendously enlightening. It is also pretty consistent with the st…
