Word: selfish
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...case...Be warned that, if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from our biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish...
...connect him with Shockley when there is no connection) DeVore and Trivers are that ludicrous, leave them alone. They'll go away like all ludicrous theories do. When people start telling The New York Times that they lynched someone or stole someone's food after reading The Selfish Gene, the matter will have to be considered further. But for now the rampant paranoia and vigilanteism at this university must cease. It is the other side of the fascist coin...
...write, without glee and thinking that I'm probably wasting my time, to complain about a review by J. Wyatt Emmerich that appeared in the April 11 Crimson. It is not opinion that I criticize, but misrepresentation of the book, Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene...
...Dawkins," says Emmerich, "writes as though genes are conscious entities" and goes on to explain, as if Dawkins did not, that genes are not conscious and that "what Dawkins is really talking about" is simple evolution. However, Dawkins states explicitly "selfish genes are unconscious, blind, replicators" (p.215). He explains early (p. 48) that "evolution is the process by which some genes become more and others less numerous in the gene pool" and that "at times, gene language gets a bit tedious, and for brevity and vividness we shall lapse into metaphor...
States Emmerich, "there is no such things as a 'selfish gene'." Of course, as Dawkins says, genes are not conscious, and, as he repeatedly emphasizes, he is not talking about motives in behavior, but of practical effects. Those genes that created local environments that perpetuated their own survival were those that survived. It is clearly in this sense that genes are truly selfish...