The Selfish Altruist.

I never imagined myself reading a science book. Then, before I knew it I was at my desk ready to read page one of: The Selfish Gene. Before I even started reading the first world I could not help but think of the title, The Selfish Gene, The Selfish Gene I kept repeating those three words in my mind. How can a book about science talk about selfishness? Nothing came up so I decided to start reading.

Richard Dawkins starts off his book by questioning the scientists, asking “have they discovered evolution yet?”(Page 1). Even if Darwin did propose a theory for evolution nothing is completely true and still “”philosophies and the subjects known to humanity are still thought almost as if Darwin had never lived.”(1) There are still doubts unclear that nobody has been able to figure out. Reading this, I still kept thinking what it had to with selfishness when Dawkins answered my question and told me, “my purpose is to examine the biology of selfishness and altruism”(1).

Later on, the book talks about genes, how the body serves as a protection for these, and how the strongest gene is the one that in the end will live longer than the rest. All the genes in our bodies are rivals against each other they are in constant competition to see which one won’t die and in the end which will be the most numerous. This is another way of saying that genes are selfish and that can be one of the reason why “anything that has evolved by natural selection should be selfish”(4) because whatever it may be it will always strive to become the best.

If man was born selfish, how can it become altruistic? There is no way for us to change the genes so that instead of being born selfish we are born altruistic. I wish there was way so that each person would contribute for a common good and not a personal one. Dawkins also believes this but he does state “that we may then at least have the chance to upset their design”(3) What could it be?