Word: selfishness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...president of the United Genes says at his inaugural address to the millions of purines and pyrimidines who have tuned in, "I will strive to unite all our genetic material from the lowest guanines to the highest cytosines so we can work together to create the meanest, nastiest, most selfish and lustful creature we have ever lived in, thereby continuing our, existence. This I promise." Thunderous applause...
Richard Dawkins' new book, The Selfish Gene, rehashes, somewhat incoherently, conclusions drawn from studies showing the tremendous influence of genes on animal behavior. The main reason Dawkins's book has not been immediately shoved away to some dusty corner in Widener where only zoologists and rats would dare to tread is because Dawkins has added a spicy--and misleading--approach to the subject of genetics...
Human beings, Dawkins contends, are simply throwaway survival-machines for their immortal genes. Man is a gene machine: a robot vehicle, blindly programmed to preserve its "selfish" genes...
This perspective is simply a distorted one. Nucleotides and guanine molecules can't be selfish and they can't be cunning. Genes don't fight for survival. Genes couldn't care less whether they replicate or not. Different genes give organisms different traits. Some of these traits are conducive to survival and some are not. The genes that confer traits that help organisms survive and reproduce become more frequent in nature, but there is no such thing as a "selfish gene." What Dawkins is really writing about is natural selection--the nonrandom differential reproduction of particular genes. And the only...
...themselves. Together they supposedly forged the deathbed instructions of Mao, incited violence and sabotage throughout the country, and mounted campaigns of slander against anyone who opposed them. Chiang Ch'ing is being described by the press and in countless wall posters as a kind of Chinese Marie Antoinette, selfish, greedy and arrogant...