The Selfish Gene

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.

Nowadays the intricate mutual co-evolution of genes has proceeded to such an extent that the communal nature of an individual survival machine is virtually unrecognizable. Indeed, many biologists do not recognize it, and will disagree with me.

[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.

We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism—something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

I agree with Axelrod and Hamilton that many wild animals and plants are engaged in ceaseless games of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, played out in evolutionary time.

The only kind of entity that has to exist in order for life to arise, anywhere in the universe, is the immortal replicator.

An organism has a frequency of one, and therefore cannot ‘serve as a unit of natural selection.’ Not in the same sense of replicator anyway.