Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene

With his provoking work entitled The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins attempts to answer such questions as he proposes a shift in the evolutionary paradigm. Working through the metaphor of a "selfish gene", Dawkins constructs an evolutionary model using a gene as the fundamental unit of selection, opposed to the more commonly accepted belief of the species as the unit of selection.

In The Origin of Species, Darwin calls the process of natural selection or survival of the fittest, the preservation of favorable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those, which are injurious (Darwin, 1901). Darwin’s theory of evolutionary change and process of natural selection surmises that variations exist in every

Susan Blackmore’s’ Ted Talk allows the indoctrinated a window into the menetics world. She is an easily understood speaker, with excitement and funny memes to help the viewers along the path to understanding. She provided us with an introduction in the algorithm of evolution as well as an entry-level understanding of how she takes Dawkins theory of memes and expands upon it. She proposes that the science is maligned and misunderstood so offers us with the following:

Dawkins uses examples of the ‘Manx shearwater’ (devil bird) and the evolution mask by Einstein

The arguments Dawkins presents are compelling and for the most part the evidence to support them are very solid. Are the sources reliable however? The answer is a resounding yes; Dawkins utilizes a number of sources from a variety of academic scholars and reputable writers. The basis on which Marcia Alsean Dawkins develops her thesis is directly from Michel de Certeau’s

The most well-known summarization for what evolution is, is a change in genetic makeup (phenotype makeup) of a population over time; or a change in allele frequencies in a population over time (College Biology, 2014, p. 513). Darwin’s theory of natural selection says that organisms have great potential fertility, natural resources are very limited, variation in phenotypes exists among individuals within a species, natural populations naturally remain constant and consistent in size, and traits (an observable or measurable characteristic) that an organism holds are heritable (College Biology, 2014 p. 486-489).

behavior for the benefit of other." (Recent Work on Human Altruism and Evolution) Another popularized theory by Richard Dawkins states that an individual who behaves more altruistic towards others who share its genes will tend to reproduce those genes. But since we always want

The theories and ideologies of Charles Darwin, though still considered controversial, had undeniably left an everlasting mark on the scientific world. Darwin not only played a tremendous role in the development of the modern theory of evolution, but also embraced the fundamentals of civil disobedience by challenging the first words of the Christian church. Originally, the public masses disregarded his research and beliefs because of their misalignment with the time period’s mindset. However, Darwin’s approach to publishing his controversial theory proved successful because it inevitably pushed natural biology, as well as science as a whole, to new heights.

“Evolution can be defined as any change in the heritable traits within a population across generations”. (what is evolution, stated clearly YouTube, 2016). Every living creature can reproduce making another copy of themselves with small variations. The variation can consist of characteristics Like the passing down of fur colour in mice or the development of the length in cane toad’s legs. When these changes occur to their offspring’s, evolution has taken place. Whilst many scientists believed in the theory of evolution, alters to the belief extended to a certain extent. Throughout this essay two scientists, Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, beliefs opinions and theories of evolution will be deconstructed.

Since Darwin published his theory of evolution, cooperation in organisms from bacteria to humans has been a difficult dilemma in evolutionary theory. Even Darwin did not fully understand how altruistic acts in organisms fit into the natural selection theory. Natural selection theory states that an individual that has inherited a trait that gives them a better chance at surviving, will be naturally selected for. An explanation as to why a trait that causes an individual to act in a way that is costly to it persists in groups has confounded scientists for centuries. Since then, scientists like Trivers and Williams provide theories to explain altruistic acts that still satisfy the natural selection theory. Williams appealed to kinship to satisfy the behavior, and Trivers appealed to reciprocal altruism where an altruistic act was conditionally reciprocated (Trivers 2006, Williams 1966). This study seeks to look at the possibility of three of the main theories; by product mutualism, kin selection, or reciprocal altruism as explanations to cooperation in the Pied flycatchers. The birds provide a rich study system in which they form breeding pairs, large amount of social interactions, and societies are composed of both unrelated and related individuals. Although many studies look at these explanations separately, this study integrates all the different explanations of cooperation into one experiment, keeping the species, environment, and individuals

Countless scientists spent their lives working on a succinct theory of evolution, but none found as great of popularity and success as Charles Darwin. Using his concept of Natural Selection, Darwin managed to explain evolution in not just the organic world, but also in humans. The fact that Darwin’s theory transfers so easily to human society is no coincidence. After Darwin’s Beagle voyage, he returned to England during the Industrial Revolution. As a man of wealth, Darwin acted as a first-hand witness to the societal changes occurring around him. The Industrial Revolution, along with the corresponding economic theories of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus, influenced Darwin’s theory of evolution as well as helped make his theory popular among social elitists.

Thus, the theory that genes were the basis of all biological characteristics of inheritance became accepted. Both Mendel and Darwin have presented their theories from a reductionist viewpoint. Dawkins statement from 'The Selfish Gene' would appear to give an holistic viewpoint by including the psychological, as well as biological, aspect of gene control. 2 To decide whether this is the viewpoint being put forward it is necessary to investigate known causes of gene manipulation.

Charles Robert Darwin, the creator of the theory of evolution that has changed the way that we perceive the world as we know it. The naturalists think that we are all our own separate beings but the theory of evolution goes against what the naturalists think. Darwin believes that every species that exists today is just an evolution of their ancestor where we needed to adapt to different geological environments and living conditions to survive. This principle is called “Survival of the fittest” and links to the idea of natural selection which is the basic concept of evolution. The concept of natural selection is when given when a species changes to accommodate its environment to be able to survive, it can be weather conditions or even to be able to escape predators but eventually because of this the species evolves differently to be able to stay alive. Charles Darwin is the father of evolution who has shed light upon many things that help us to understand who we are and how we came to be today. In this paper I will be talking about his theory and how it works. The different view points about it which could be negative depending on what you believe in and further develop the concept of natural selection also evolution within itself and how different species had to evolve to adapt to the environmental conditions.

Each chapter in the book has a specific idea about genes and their reactions. Everyone in the world and every animal has the nature to be aggressive. Natural selection deals with every species in the world. In chapter five, Dawkins explains the aggression of species. The aggression of species is what holds natural selection. In chapter six, the theory of genemanship and individual altruism. Individual altruism is when the actions of one person or animal increase the skills of another. Individual altruism has an impact with genes because of the theory that genes could combine to become stronger. Everyone in the world has genes, and every gene has a purpose. In chapter seven Dawkin explains his thoughts on how a human or an animal decides whether it is time to create offspring. Offspring is children and every living organism can produce offspring. Creating offspring is very important because it makes the species pool bigger and adds more variation in the world. Dawkins says on page 122, “animals optimize their birth-rates rather than restrict them for

Darwin studied the human psychology in great detail and analyzed and interpreted the individual differences which set an individual apart from the other humans despite the fact that they share the same genetic constitution. This helped in understanding the similarities and the differences in the behaviors of the human beings (Angell, (n.d.)). He introduced the ideas about the complexity of the human nature which helped the scientists and psychologists in placing each individual separately and apart from each other. Based on these theories and findings of Charles Darwin many scientists could put together their assessments and evaluations about the science of human behavior. This helped the scientists to expand their range of study in the field of human emotions, interactions, and social communication and led to the development of evolutionary psychology (Frances, (2013)).