The Selfish Gene (and Memes)
Richard Dawkins · 1976
"The gene, not the organism, is the true unit of natural selection — animals are 'survival machines' built by genes to replicate themselves, and culture spreads by an analogous unit Dawkins named the meme."
Dawkins reframes the unit of evolution: not the individual animal, but the gene. Genes that happened to code for traits improving their own copying survived differentially across deep time; from this angle, an animal's body, brain, and behavior are a 'vehicle' built by genes for the purpose of replicating themselves. Calling genes 'selfish' isn't a claim about intention — genes are molecules with no intentions — it's shorthand for a logical property: we only observe the genes whose effects helped them get copied, because the alternative ones simply aren't here anymore.
In the book's final chapter, Dawkins extends the same logic to culture, introducing the meme — a unit of cultural information (an idea, tune, belief, practice) that spreads by jumping from mind to mind through imitation rather than DNA, and that gets selected for how well it spreads and sticks, independent of whether it happens to be true. Dawkins closes by arguing that humans, uniquely among four billion years of 'vehicles,' can consciously recognize the gene's replication agenda running underneath their own drives — and choose to act against it, including choosing not to reproduce at all, something no gene could ever select for.
What term, coined in this book's final chapter, went on to become one of the most common words on the internet?
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The explanation above is written with AI assistance. These are the originals — go to them to check it.
- Richard Dawkins — The Selfish Gene explainedYouTube
- The Selfish GeneWikipedia
Leviathan
"Without a common power to keep everyone in check, human life would be a war of all against all — so rational self-interested individuals agree to surrender some of their freedom to an absolute sovereign in exchange for security and order, and that agreement, not divine right, is the true basis of political authority."