The Selfish Gene.
"Evolution works by natural
selection, and natural selection means the differential survival
of the 'fittest'."1a
DARWIN
". . . [T]he 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."1b
SCHRODINGER
"Darwin's 'survival of the
fittest' is really a special case of a more general law of
survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable
things. A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent
enough or common enough to deserve a name."1c
DARWIN
"The DNA can be regarded as
a set of instructions for how to make a body, written in the A,
T, C, G alphabet of the nucleotides. . . The DNA instructions
have been assembled by natural selection."1d
WATSON
"A gene is defined as any
portion of chromosomal material that potentially last for enough
generations to serve as a unit of natural selection. . .
a gene is
a replicator with high copying-fidelity."1e
SCHRODINGER
"The gene is the
basic unit
of selfishness."1f
"A 'strategy' is a
pre-programmed behavioural policy. An example of a strategy is:
'Attack opponent; if he flees pursue him; if he retaliates run
away.' . . .
An evolutionary stable strategy or ESS is defined as a strategy
which, if most members of a population adopt it,
cannot be
bettered by an alternative strategy."1g
"Just as genes propagate
themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via
sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by
leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad
sense, can be called imitation."1h
MEDAWAR
"Natural selection favours
those genes that manipulate the world to ensure their own
propagation. This leads to what I have called the Central Theorem
of the Extended Phenotype: An animal's behaviour tends to
maximize the survival of the genes 'for' that behaviour, whether
or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular
animal performing it. . . the theorem could apply .. . . -- to
anything."1i
"A body . . . is not a replicator; it is a
vehicle. . . Vehicles don't replicate
themselves; they work to propagate their replicators. Replicators
don't behave, don't perceive the world, don't catch prey or run
away from predators; they make vehicles that do all those things."1j
"The only kind of entity
that has to exist in order for life to arise, anywhere in the
universe, is the immortal replicator."1k
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