The Selfish Gene
Summary
Quotes
The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. (3)
Among animals, man is uniquely dominated by culture, by influences learned and handed down. (4)
I shall argue that the fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene, the unit of heredity. (14)
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is satisfying because it shows us a way in which simplicity could change into complexity, how unordered atoms could group themselves into ever more complex patterns until they ended up manufacturing people. (15)
A gene is defined as any portion of chromosomal material that potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection. (36)
Any gene that behaves in such a way as to increase its own survival chances in the gene pool at the expense of its alleles will, by definition, tautologously, tend to survive. The gene is the basic unit of selfishness. (46)
The true ‘purpose’ of DNA is to survive, no more and no less.
the control of genes in only an indirect, but still very powerful, sense. By dictating the way survival machines and their nervous systems are built, genes exert ultimate power over behaviour. But the moment-to-moment decisions about what to do next are taken by the nervous system. Genes are the primary policy-makers; brains are the executives. (77)
An evolutionarily stable strategy or ESS is defined as a strategy which, if most members of a population adopt it, cannot be bettered by an alternative strategy. It is a subtle and important idea. Another way of putting it is to say that the best strategy for an individual depends on what the majority of the population are doing. Since the rest of the population consists of individuals, each one trying to maximize his own success, the only strategy that persists will be one which, once evolved, cannot be bettered by any deviant individual.
If there is a human moral to be drawn, it is that we must teach our children altruism, for we cannot expect it to be part of their biological nature.
To sum up this chapter so far, the various different kinds of breeding system that we find among animals-monogamy, promiscuity, harems, and so on-can be understood in terms of conflicting interests between males and females. Individuals of either sex ‘want’ to maximize their total reproductive output during their lives. Because of a fundamental difference between the size and numbers of sperms and eggs, males are in general likely to be biased towards promiscuity and lack of paternal care. Females have two main available counter-ploys, which I have called the he-man and the domestic-bliss strategies. The ecological circumstances of a species will determine whether the females are biased towards one or the other of these counter-ploys, and will also determine how the males respond. In practice all intermediates between he-man and domestic-bliss are found and, as we have seen, there are cases in which the father does even more child-care than the mother. This book is not concerned with the details of particular animals species, so I will not discuss what might predispose a species towards one form of breeding system rather than another. Instead I will consider the differences that are commonly observed between males and females in general, and show how these may be interpreted. I shall therefore not be emphasizing those species in which the differences between the sexes are slight, these being in general the ones whose females have favoured the domestic-bliss strategy.
What this astonishing variety suggests is that man’s way of life is largely determined by culture rather than by genes.
Most of what is unusual about man can be summed up in one word: ‘culture’. I use the word not in its snobbish sense, but as a scientist uses it. Cultural transmission is analogous to genetic transmission in that, although basically conservative, it can give rise to a form of evolution.
The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to ‘memory’, or to the French word meme. It should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream’.
Thoughts
- Stotting – a gazelle jumps really high to broadcast its fitness, as if to say to the lion I won’t be any easy meal
- virgin birth might be a result of a mistranslation from the Hebrew to Greek for the word for young woman
- Beau Geste effect - The Beau Geste hypothesis in animal behaviour is the hypothesis that tries to explain why some avian species have such elaborate song repertoires for the purpose of territorial defence. The hypothesis takes its name from the 1924 book Beau Geste and was coined by John Krebs in 1977. The Beau Geste hypothesis which was coined by Krebs in 1977 to explain why various avian species have such large song repertories. The hypothesis discusses that avian species utilize such large song repertories for potentially a number of reasons such as for territorial defence and to test the competition within a new habitat. The name of the hypothesis comes from the book which was originally published in 1924 “Beau Geste”. The book tells the story of three English brothers which all enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and ended up in a desert battle against a Tuareg army. They were greatly outnumbered, and in order to create the illusion that they had more men than they actually had, they took whatever dead soldiers they could find and propped them up along the walls of the fortress.