Rendering Understandment.

I am going to be honest with you, I hate science although I find interesting I have never really understand it and it has always been my worst subject. So knowing that I had to read one chapter of The Selfish Gene tonight did not bring me much excitement, I was mentally prepared to concentrate a lot and still get lost in the middle of text. As Dawkins told me about DNA and the number of chromosomes we humans have I dozed of into space, I continue reading but all sudden the DNA talking stops and I am now reading about book and pages. I go back and read again because I was probably day dreaming but no, Dawkins was actually relating DNA to books on a shelf, “it is as though in every room of a gigantic building, there was a book-case containing the architects plans for the entire building.”(22) From the moment when I finished reading that sentence I wanted to continue reading and to see what other comparisons he would use and I would be able to understand.

In chapter 4 he surprised me again by saying “muscles are engines which, like the steam engine and the internal combustion engine, use energy stored in chemical fuel to generate mechanical movement.”(47) He compares our muscles and their function to machine to explain to us how these work. Later on, he compares our genes to computers and how both are programmed to the future plans without actually having to anything. Genes are given the instruction and will always control how are body is made, with this I understood that he wanted to prove the point that genes can control the behavior. I finished chapter 4 but the last thing he mentioned made me realize that this had to do with the title of the book and how we can be selfish not just because that is who we re or how we are raised but because of our genes.

Lastly, I want to thank Richard Dawkins for making me understand something about science with his comparisons, and I can’t wait to see with what will he surprise me next.