by Richard Dawkins
Our brain has evolved to a point where we can rebel against our own nature
Organisms are vehicles for genes
However much we deplore something, it does not stop it from being true
People have a hard time distinguishing between statements as what are vs statements of what should be — the former can be made without implying the latter
Knowledge about a world in which a man has prospered gives you knowledge about that man
Genes are selfish and it is sometimes in their best interest to act altruistically
This book is not a discussion of nature vs nurture though it posits that man is not wholly determined by his biology
In this book, altruism refers not the the motive of an act but to the outcome of it — does it decrease the actors chance of survival while increasing the chance of the beneficiary?
Female praying mantises will bite off a males head and he will still mate with her, and even perform better given decreased nerve sensations
The law of gene selfishness posits not that individuals act in the interest of the individual but on the interest of the gene
Evolution is blind to the future
Group selection is a popular but false theory that species whose members act altruistically have a better chance of surviving compared to selfish species
Altruism is not evolutionarily advantageous because altruistic individuals die before they pass on their genes and therefore the trait is not passed forward to future generations
Some acts appear to be altruistic but can be otherwise explained by gene selfishness (kamikaze bees)
Survival of the fittest is actually survival of the stable on a universal scale
Replicator molecules aggregated themselves in the primordial soup that was the sea billions of years ago. They continued to replicate themselves, making errors along the way with each error another degree removed from the original and one degree more prone to variance