Selfish DNA refers to those sequences of DNA which, in their purest form, have two distinct properties: (1) the DNA sequence spreads by forming additional copies of itself within the genome; and (2) it makes no specific contribution to the reproductive success of its host organism. This idea was sketched briefly by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene and was explicitly exposed in two 1980 articles in Nature magazine. According to one of these articles:
The theory of natural selection, in its more general formulation, deals with the competition between replicating entities. It shows that, in such a competition, the more efficient replicators increase in number at the expense of their less efficient competitors. After a sufficient time, only the most efficient replicators survive.
— L.E. Orgel & F.H.C. Crick, Selfish DNA: the ultimate parasite.
The selfish DNA can be considered an efficient replicator that follows another way of increasing in number.
Read more about Selfish DNA: Examples
Famous quotes containing the words selfish and/or dna:
“At present, man applies to nature but half his force. He works on the world with his understanding alone. He lives in it, and masters it by a penny-wisdom; and he that works most in it, is but a half-man, and whilst his arms are strong and his digestion good, his mind is imbruted, and he is a selfish savage.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Here [in London, history] ... seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)