Thus, accordiong to the above definition, female is the weaker sex and
she should be dominated.!!Also see the part where he says that he is NOT
doing a moral science..
Mine
http://www.spacelab.net/~catalj/selfish.htm
The opening pages of Chapter 1
Chapter 1 - Why are people?
Darwin made it possible for us to give a sensible answer to the curious child whose question heads this chapter. ['Why are people?'] We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems; Is there meaning to life? What are we for? What is Man?
The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes.
This brings me to the first point I want to make about what this book
is not. I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. I am saying
how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to
behave. ... If you wish to extract a moral from it, read it as a warning.
Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals
cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can
expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity
and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own
selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to
upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to
do.
I shall argue that the fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene, the unit of heredity.
Chapter 2 - The replicators
Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques
and artifices used by the replicators to ensure their own continuation
in the world? There would be plenty of time for their improvement. What
weird engines of self-preservation would the millennia bring forth? Four
thousand million years on, what was to be
the fate of the ancient replicators? They did not die out, for they
are the past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating
loose in the sea; they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they
swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off
from the outside world, communicating with
it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.
They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind;and their preservation
is the ultimate rational for our existence. They have come a long way,
those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes,and we are their survival
machines.
Chapter 3 - Immortal coils
Our DNA lives inside our bodies, It is not concentrated in a particular
part of the body, but is distributed among the cells. There are about a
thousand million million cells making up an average human body, and, with
some exceptions which we can ignore, every one of those cells contains
a complete copy of that body's
DNA.
The evolutionary importance of the fact that genes control embryonic development is this: it means that genes are at least partly responsible for their own survival in the future, because their survival depends on the efficiency of the bodies in which they live and which they helped to build.
The definition that I want comes from G. C. Williams. A gene is defined as any portion of chromosomal material that potentially last for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection.
Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too
are shuffled to oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt.
But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes.
The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners
and march on. Of course they march
on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their
survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But
genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever.
Genes are competing directly with their alleles for survival, since
their alleles in the gene pool are rivals for their slot on the chromosomes
of future generations. Any gene that behaves in such a way as to increase
its own survival chances in the gene pool at the expense of its alleles
will, by definition, tautologously, tend to
survive. The gene is the basic unit of selfishness.
No doubt some of your cousins and great-uncles died in childhood, but not a single one of your ancestors did. Ancestors just don't die young!
Chapter 4 - The gene machine
opening paragraph:
Survival machines began as passive receptacles for the genes, providing
little more than walls to Protect them from the chemical warfare of their
rivals and the ravages of accidental molecular bombardment. In the early
days they 'fed' on organic molecules freely available in the soup. This
easy life came to an end when the
organic food in the soup, which had been slowly built up under the
energetic influence of centuries of sunlight, was all used up, A major
branch of survival machines, now called plants, started to use sunlight
directly themselves to build up complex molecules from simple ones, re-enacting
at much higher speed the synthetic
processes of the original soup.
The evolution of the capacity to simulate seems to have culminated in
subjective consciousness. Why this should have happened is, to me, the
most profound mystery facing modern biology. There is no reason to suppose
that electronic computers are conscious when they simulate, although we
have to admit that in the
future they may become so. Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's
simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model
of itself. ...Whatever the philosophical problems raised by consciousness,
for the purpose of this story it can be thought of as the culmination of
an evolutionary trend towards the emancipation of survival machines as
executive decision-takers from their ultimate masters, the
genes. Not only are brains in charge of the day-to-day running of survival
machine affairs, they have also acquired the ability to predict the future
and act accordingly. They even have the power to rebel against the dictates
of their genes, for instance in refusing to have as many children as they
are able to. But in this respect
man is a very special case, as we shall see.
The genes are the master programmers, and they are programming for their lives. They are judged according to the success of their programs in copying with all the hazards that life throws at their survival machines, and the judge is the ruthless judge of the court of survival.
Whenever a system of communication evolves, there is always the danger
that some will exploit the system for their own ends. Brought up as we
have been on the 'good of the species' view of evolution, we naturally
think first of liars and deceivers as belonging to different species: predators,
prey, parasites, and so on. However,
we must expect lies and deceit, and selfish exploitation of communication
to arise whenever the interests of the genes of different individuals diverge.
This will include individuals of the same species. As we shall see, we
must even expect that children will deceive their parents, that husbands
will cheat on wives, and that brother
will lie to brother.
Chapter 5 - Aggression: stability and the selfish machine
To a survival machine, another survival machine (which is not its own
child or another close relative) is part of its environment, like a rock
or a river or a lump of food. It is something that gets in the way, or
something that can be exploited. It differs from a rock or a river in one
important respect: it is inclined to hit back. This is
because it too is a machine that holds its immortal genes in trust
for the future, and it too will stop at nothing to preserve them. Natural
selection favours genes that control their survival machines in such a
way that they make the best use of their environment. This includes making
the best use of other survival machines, both of
the same and of different species.
This interpretation of animal aggression as being restrained and formal can be disputed. In particular, it is certainly wrong to condemn poor old Homo Sapiens as the only species to kill his own kind, the only inheritor of the mark of Cain, and similar melodramatic charges.
If only everybody would agree to be a dove, every single individual
would benefit. By simple group selection, any group in which all individuals
mutually agree to be doves would be far more successful than a rival group
sitting at the ESS (Evolutionary Stable Strategy) ratio.... Group selection
theory would therefore predict a
tendency to evolve towards an all-dove conspiracy... But the trouble
with conspiracies, even those that are to everybody's advantage in the
long run, is that they are open to abuse. It is true that everybody does
better in an all-dove group than he would in an ESS group. But unfortunately,
in conspiracies of doves, a single hawk
does so extremely well that nothing could stop the evolution of hawks.
The conspiracy is therefore bound to be broken by treachery from within.
An ESS is stable, not because it is particularly good for the individuals
participating in it, but simply because it is immune to treachery from
within.
But there are other ways in which the interests of individuals from
different species conflict very sharply. For instance a lion wants to eat
an antelope's body, but the antelope has very different plans for its body.
This is not normally regarded as competition for a resource, but logically
it is hard to see why not. The resource in
question is meat. The lion genes 'want' the meat as food for their
survival machine. The antelope genes want the meat as working muscle and
organs for their survival machine. These two uses for the meat are mutually
incompatible, therefore there is conflict of interest.
Chapter 6 - Genemanship
Note: Descriptions of behavior are intended to mean general animal behavior. Human behavior may not be so clear-cut due to cultural influences. See chapters 11 & 13.
opening paragraph:
What is the selfish gene? It is not just one single physical bit of
DNA. Just as in the primeval soup, it is all replicas of a particular bit
of DNA, distributed throughout the world. If we allow ourselves the licence
of talking about genes as if they had conscious aims, always reassuring
ourselves that we could translate our sloppy language back into respectable
terms if we wanted to, we can ask the question, what is a single selfish
gene trying to do? It is trying to get more numerous in the gene pool.
Basically it does this by helping to Program the bodies in which it finds
itself to survive and to reproduce. But now we are emphasizing that 'it'
is a distributed agency, existing in many different individuals at once.
The key point of this chapter is that a gene
might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other
bodies. If so, this would appear as individual altruism but it would be
brought about by gene selfishness. it still seems rather implausible.
Are there any plausible ways in which genes might 'recognize' their copies in other individuals.' ? The answer is yes. It is easy to show that close relatives--kin--have a greater than average chance of sharing genes. It has long been clear that this is why altruism by parents towards their young is so common.
To save the life of a relative who is soon going to die of old age has less of an impact on the gene pool of the future than to save the life of an equally close relative who has the bulk of his life ahead of him.
...individuals can be thought of as life-insurance underwriters. An
individual can be expected to invest or risk a certain proportion of his
own assets in the life of another individual. He takes into account his
relatedness to the other individual, and also whether the individual is
a 'good risk' in terms of his life expectancy compared
with the insurer's own. Strictly we should say 'reproduction expectancy'
rather than 'life expectancy', or to be even more strict, 'general capacity
to benefit own genes in the future expectancy'.
Although the parent/child relationship is no closer genetically than the brother/sister relationship, its certainty is greater. It is normally possible to be much more certain who your children are than who your brothers are. And you can be more certain still who you yourself are!
One sometimes hears it said that kin selection is all very well as a
theory, but there are few examples of its working in practice. This criticism
can only be made by someone who does not understand what kin selection
means. The truth is that all examples of child protection and parental
care, and all associated bodily organs,
milk secreting glands, kangaroo pouches, and so on, are examples of
the working in nature of the kin-selection principle. The critics are of
course familiar with the widespread existence of parental care, but they
fail to understand that parental care is no less an example of kin selection
than brother/sister altruism.
Chapter 7 - Family Planning
It is a simple logical truth that, short of mass emigration into space,
with rockets taking off at the rate of several million per second, uncontrolled
birth-rates are bound to lead to horribly increased death-rates. It is
hard to believe that this simple truth is not understood by those leaders
who forbid their followers to use effective contraceptive methods. They
express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation, and
a natural method is exactly what they are going to get. It is called
starvation.
Wild animals almost never die of old age: starvation, disease, or predators catch up with them long before they become really senile. Until recently this was true of man too. Most animals die in childhood, many never get beyond the egg stage.
Individuals who have too many children are penalized, not because the
whole population goes extinct, but simply because fewer of their children
survive.... There is no need for altruistic restraint in the birth-rate,
because there is no welfare state in nature. Any gene for overindulgence
is promptly punished: the children
containing that gene starve....Contraception is sometimes attacked
as 'unnatural'. So it is, very unnatural. The trouble is, so is the welfare
state. I think that most of us believe the welfare state is highly desirable.
But you cannot have an unnatural welfare state, unless you also have unnatural
birthcontrol, otherwise the end result
will be misery even greater than that which obtains in nature.
Chapter 8 - Battle of the Generations
Note: Descriptions of behavior are intended to mean general animal behavior. Human behavior may not be so clear-cut due to cultural influences. See chapters 11 & 13.
I am treating a mother as a machine programmed to do everything in its power to propagate copies of the genes which ride inside it.
Now look at it from the point of view of a particular child. He is just
as closely related to each of his brothers and sisters as his mother is
to them. The relatedness is 1/2 in all cases. Therefore he 'wants' his
mother to invest some of her resources in his brothers and sisters. Genetically
speaking, he is just as altruistically disposed to them as his mother is.
But again, he is twice as closely related to himself as he is to any brother
or
sister, and this will dispose him to want his mother to invest in him
more than in any particular brother or sister, other things being equal.
... Selfish greed seems to characterize much of child behaviour.
...But they certainly do not lack ruthlessness. For instance, there
are honeyguides who, like cuckoos, lay their eggs in the nests of other
species. The baby honeyguide is equipped with a sharp, hooked beak. As
soon as
he hatches out, while he is still blind, naked, and otherwise helpless,
he scythes and slashes his foster brothers
and sisters to death: dead brothers do not compete for food!
The sight ofher child smiling, or the sound ofher kitten purring, is
rewarding to a mother, in the same sense as food in the stomach is rewarding
to a rat in a maze. But once it becomes true that a sweet smile or a loud
purr are rewarding, the child is in a position to use the smile or the
purr in order to manipulate the parent, and gain
more than its fair share of parental investment.
Chapter 9 - Battle of the Sexes
Note: Descriptions of behavior are intended to mean general animal behavior. Human behavior may not be so clear-cut due to cultural influences. See chapters 11 & 13.
The strategy of producing equal numbers of sons and daughters is an evolutionary stable strategy, in the sense that any gene for departing fiom it makes a net loss.
Each individual wants as many surviving children as possible. The less
he or she is obliged to invest in any one of those children, the more children
he or she can have. The obvious way to achieve this desirable state of
affairs is to induce your sexual partner to invest more than his or her
fair share of resources in each child, leaving you free to have other children
with other partners. This would be a desirable strategy for either sex,
but it is more difficult for the female to achieve...
Of course in many species the father does work hard and faithfully at looking after the young. But even so, we must expect that there will normally be some evolutionary pressure on males to invest a little bit less in each child, and to try to have more children by different wives.
By insisting on a long engagement period, a female weeds out casual suitors, and only finally copulates with a male who has proved his qualities of fidelity and perseverance in advance. Feminine coyness is in fact very common among animals, and so are prolonged courtship or engagement periods.
--
Mine Aysen Doyran
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222