Word: genesâ
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...directly manipulating the genes???those tiny command posts of heredity that tell living cells whether they will become bacteria, toads or men. Thus a plant or animal might acquire a characteristic from a totally unrelated species and pass this new trait on to future generations...
...organism will act altruistically?even to the extent of giving up its life, as a parent may, for example, by rushing into a burning house to save a child. Yet in humans, this genetic push is less binding; sociobiologists believe that human social behavior is largely controlled by facultative genes???the ones that can be influenced by environment to change their effects. Thus there is room for cowardly and selfish?as well as unselfish?behavior...
...like the nighthawk, can feign a broken wing to lure predators away from a nest. In some avian species, a female that has been inseminated by a departed male may try to hide the fact, thus tricking a new male into investing his time and resources in offspring?and genes???that are not his. In the long run, however, natural selection sharpens up both the ability to cheat and the ability to detect cheating. Trivers and Dawkins suggest that the need for deceit?and for its detection?may have been responsible for the rapid enlargement of the human brain during...
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