The revolution of life: from selfish genes to cooperative cells

We can understand society as an organism made up of individuals who, with their ideas, activities and above all interactions, keep it running. Just as a living being has tissues and organs, society has structures that provide it with resilience and allow it to adapt to changes and evolve. In the 1970s, the book Sociobiology extended concepts from genetics and evolutionary biology to human behaviour and, together with Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene , proposed a vision of human nature as an inevitable consequence of our genes and their history. The central argument of this idea holds that organisms are nothing more than a product of genes whose ambition is to propagate eternally in time, for which they fight each other. In that world, a lion and an antelope are nothing more than ships that the genes of each animal build to propagate: the lion kills the antelope because the genes it carries want to propagate at the expense of those of the antelope. The organism has no more value than as an ephemeral product of the genes for its survival. In these battles, genes mutate, changing the designs of their ships to improve their reproduction. Darwin had already said that life on earth was stained with blood in the teeth and claws of animals. Dawkins adds the notion of selfishness to the elements of inheritance in the battle for survival.

The central role of genes in our existence is manifested today in the constant references to the fact that what we are, our health and illness, even our longevity, can all be reduced to our genes. Sometimes, the argument extends to our collective actions. When Margaret Thatcher said that there is no such thing as society, but only individuals, she was pointing to competitiveness and selfishness as the bases of social success. Today, this discourse is hidden behind racism, discrimination and inequality. Not in vain, Trump and Musk talk about good and bad genes to justify their immigration and fertility policies. It is interesting how genetics is a double-edged sword that sometimes requires argumentative contortions to free the gene-centric vision of life from its social consequences. But perhaps, saving the situation does not require dialectical subtleties, but rather putting genes in their place. For this we must recognize a biological reality that we have before our eyes and that provides a more optimistic and liberating vision of life. A vision centered on an element of our biological essence with more power and better arts than genes: cells.

Organisms are the creation of cells. Each of us is a set of a trillion cells that live and work with the same number of bacteria, which, by the way, are also cells. And in this reality, there is something more surprising. While you are reading, your body is boiling. Every second, your bone marrow produces two million new red blood cells (yes, you read that number right: two million), the cells of your skin are in a process of total renewal that will culminate at the end of the month and the cells of your intestine, bombarded by the last meal, will do the same within a week. And all this in a cooperative environment between the different tissues : the blood distributes fuel so that everything happens, the skin protects the delicate machinery that keeps us alive and the intestine creates fuel from food. The cells of the heart, the brain, the eyes are more stable, but they depend on the others. An organism is a society of cells in continuous renewal, where each one does its job with the aim of keeping the whole functioning.

Cells are complex and wonderful structures that have been invented in the course of evolution, the true origin of life as we know it. The diversity of animals and plants that we enjoy is not due to the gene catalogues of each organism, but to the variety and organisation of the cells that make us up and what they do with the genes. If there is any doubt about the creative power of the cell, we only have to look at the process by which the union of an egg and a sperm is transformed into an organism through that crucible that is the embryo from which the trillion-cell structure that makes us up emerges. Contrary to what is said, genes do not represent a blueprint for a living being. But, even if they were, who executes it? The protagonists of the process that is the creation of an embryo are the cells, which multiply, diversify structurally and functionally and by communicating with each other and their environment, build tissues and organs. Cells know how to count, create and shape space, placing each part of the body in its place, providing it with the overall functionality required for the survival of the organism . In these processes, genes are not the protagonists, but rather a bar code for the tools that cells use in their tasks. Genes do what cells need, when and where they decide. It is the cells, and not the genes, that have woven our being in the womb of our mothers and that allow you to read these lines, listen to music, talk to friends, dream.

It is true that our knowledge of the cell is still primitive, but we must not let the current obsession with genes obscure its limitations and inhibit us from exploring much that we do not yet know about cells.

The view of biology from the cell's point of view is opposed to that of the gene. Where the gene is selfish, the cell cooperates for the common good, which, in the end, is the organism. When a cell, imitating the selfish gene, rebels and wants to impose its interests, the product is disease, with cancer as the best example; the consequence is the destruction of the organism.

Viewing cells as the architects of life promises a new vision of biology. But perhaps we should also see them as a reflection of the society we aspire to, as an example of what can be achieved when the goal is not competition for a fleeting future, but the result of the collaboration of diverse elements – cells, individuals – for a common good. Biology is not there to provide scientific justifications for social actions, but perhaps in these days of uncertainty we can look to biology for hope and inspiration. Just as an organism is not a collection of selfish genes, but the result of the cooperative work of its altruistic cells, a society is not a collection of individuals seeking their own good at the expense of those most in need, but, like an organism, the result of cooperation among its individuals, each contributing the best they have to provide resilience, justice and a future in the form of the common good.

Alfonso Martínez Arias is an ICREA Research Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. His book 'Las arquitectas de la vida' ( Paidos ), on which this article is based, is published this month.