“The Selfish Gene” explains evolution by looking at single genes as the basic units that are ultimately responsible for the selection process, and for driving our behavior.
3 Sentence Summary
- Our genes don’t care about us
- We all have tendencies to maximize our benefits
- We can consciously decide to override our genes’ programming
The Selfish Gene – Summary
About The Author:
Richard Dawkin is an ethologist and evolutionary psychologist and has been a professor at Oxford for many years.
Note:
I read “The Selfish Gene” in my younger twenties, and while it remains a seminal book, I haven’t re-read it because I consider more recent evolutionary psychology books to be more encompassing and updated.
Selfish Gene – Meaning
A gene is not selfish because only a sentient being can be selfish.
Richard Dawkins wants to express instead that natural selection does not care how the genes are passed along, but only that they will.
And the more likely it is that a gene will be passed along, the more likely it is that a certain trait that the gene gives birth to, will spread and eventually become common to a whole population.
If the animal or person carrying that gene will suffer or die in the process, again, natural selection does not care.
Natural evolution can actually at times select behavior that is harmful to the organism as long as the organism passes its genes on.
Selfish Genes Make For Selfish Human Beings
Dawkins does present a view of very selfish human beings though.
He says human beings are selfish with a semblance of altruism.
The more selfish we can be while at the same time appearing the most altruist, the more benefits we can reap from the people around us while we are actually doing our own interests.
Dawkins says that any other being around us, especially if of the same species, can be an enemy in the struggle for survival and passing on genes.
Inclusive Fitness & Altruism
Richard Dawkins popularized the concept of W. D. Hamilton.
That concept is that an individual does not simply want to maximize the number of children, but wants to maximize the spreading of his genes, which is not exactly the same thing.
For example, caring for a brother makes genetic sense because his children will share 1/4 of our genes.
The book doesn’t talk about it, but by extension, we share at least some genes and similarities with every other human being on the planet, so theoretically we tend to prefer to rescue a human being instead of an animal.
Battle of the Sexes
Richard Dawkins says that, from a genetic point of view, there’s much between a wife and a husband that can be divisive.
For example, while both want the good of their children, one could easily gain by investing less than the partner so as to have more to invest in other possible children.
There’s always a constant “arms race” where both genders, men especially, are trying to look better than what they actually are to lure a partner and the partner needs to be able to discern false advertising from the truth.
Women also have a tendency to try to look less sexual for men so that men will want to marry and invest in them (we talk a bit about how men can disarm this tendency in text flirting for men).
Kins Battles Among Each Other
Dawkins says that a parent’s interest is to see as many of her children survive.
However, in some dire situations, she might sacrifice a son/daughter who’s too weak to increase the chances of survival of the other children.
Children also present a strategy in which they try to maximize the Parental Investment all for themselves.
Groups Are Equally Selfish
Dawkins says that even when we form groups we display an apparent unselfish behavior, but it developed in the first place only because it helps spread the genes of each single individual.
Groups make genetic sense because we live in a non-zero-sum world: we can all profit from cooperation.
Nice Guys Finish First
Dawkins presents the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma and how the simplest strategy to play the game won them all.
The strategy is called Tit for Tat always gives first, never “cheats” first but always retaliates when cheated. Tit for That drove away cheating behavior until everyone cooperated.
For more on “tit for tat” check out “The Moral Animal“ and “The Origins of Virtue“.
Humans Often “Disobey” Genes
Humans are far more complex and have built civilizations that often “disobey” genes.
Contraceptives and the use of porn instead of copulation are such an example.
Also, many elements of culture do not always seem to have a direct connection with natural selection.
Bigger Than Our Genes
Importantly, Richard Dawkins says, we evolved a neo-cortex and a brain, which allows us to step back, understand what our genes want and decide if we want to resist.
We all love sugar, for example, because of natural evolution, but we can force ourselves to eat less when we see it’s not actually helping our organism anymore.
Or we can consciously decide not to have children.
Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do
Criticism
The Original Premise of Selfishness Was Wrong
The Selfish Gene, both in its original version and its title, may lead people astray.
It’s true that ‘the selfish gene’ operates under simple ‘whatever replicates me best’ rules.
However, it doesn’t mean that the resulting behavior of the animal must necessarily be selfish. Instead, contrary to the title, the best interest of the animal, including humans, is often to cooperate.
This isn’t a wishful thinking opinion, but it’s the results of successive decades of theories and empirical evidence.
I quote Krebs from The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior:
As brilliant and renowned as Richard Dawkins is, he reached the wrong conclusion about the evolution of morality, primarily because he conflated genetic selfishness, which pertains to the selection of genes, with biological and psychological forms of selfishness (a mistake that Dawkins corrected in revisions of his books).
In a nutshell, behaving in biologically and psychologically altruistic and moral ways can increase fitness, and behaving in biologically and psychologically selfish and immoral ways can diminish fitness (Krebs, 2011).
So if you want to read The Selfish Gene, make sure you get the latest version.
Review
The Selfish Gene is a seminal text of evolutionary psychology.
It reframed evolution from the gene’s perspective, showing how genes drive behavior to maximize their replication.
However, its original version also mistakenly overextended the “selfishness” metaphor to human behavior, and downplayed the role of gorup and cultural selection.
My crazy coincidence story with this book
I have an interesting story connected to The Selfish Gene.
Not long after I finished reading the book, I went to Facebook to check if there were any pages for it or (back then I had just opened the account a few days prior).
There wasn’t any group, but I saw a person with that name. It was a girl.
I left it at that.
Years later, I was living in Prague and was out at a nightclub.
A girl approached me and we started talking. Wanna guess who she was? Yep, it was Selfish Gene.
I wish I could share a happy ending story and tell you she was nice and all. But here’s a hint for you: if a woman represents herself with a marker of self-aborption, maybe she isn’t the kindest and most supportive woman :)
