Selfish Gene Quotes

• 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 the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Generosity, Design

  The Selfish Gene ch. 1 (1976)

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• They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale 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.

  Richard Dawkins

  Names, Long, Survival

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.41, Oxford University Press

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• We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Science, Survival

  1976 The Selfish Gene, ch.2.

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• Any altruistic system is inherently unstable, because it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Abuse, Individual

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.140, Oxford University Press

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• Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.

  Steven Pinker

  Selfish, Player, Blue

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• Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Philosophical, Thought Provoking

  Richard Dawkins (2006). “The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition”, p.9, OUP Oxford

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• 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.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Rebel, Machines

  "The Selfish Gene". Book by Richard Dawkins, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1976.

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• I am not advocating a morality based on evolution.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religion, Atheism, Morality

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene”, p.3, Oxford University Press

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• We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Rebel, Earth

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.221, Oxford University Press

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• Human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Vanity, Goal

  Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.58, W. W. Norton & Company

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• If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies ... are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention ... The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Evil, Design

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• Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation forthe existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Eye, Sight

  The Blind Watchmaker ch. 1 (1986) See Paley 3

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  Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.

  Richard Dawkins

  Health, Theory Of Evolution, Inspire

  Richard Dawkins (2006). “The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition”, p.30, OUP Oxford

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• When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.

  Richard Dawkins

  Cells, Brain, Mind

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.213, Oxford University Press

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• The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfishness, Would Be, Sitting

  Richard Dawkins (1989). “The Selfish Gene”, p.88, Oxford University Press, USA

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• People who criticize The Selfish Gene like that often haven't read it. The selfish gene accounts for altruism toward kin and individuals who might be in a position to reciprocate your altruism.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, People, Might

  Source: newrepublic.com

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• Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.

  Richard Dawkins

  Powerful, Believe, People

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• You can make some inferences about a man's character if you know something about the conditions in which he has survived and prospered.

  Richard Dawkins

  Character, Men, Inference

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.24, Oxford University Press

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• The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  Richard Dawkins

  Funny, Sarcastic, Atheist

  River Out of Eden ch. 4 (1995)

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• I've always been antagonistic to any naïve application of the selfish gene theory to politics. Some people have attempted to suggest that it means we are selfish or we should be selfish.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Mean, People

  Source: newrepublic.com

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  Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense.

  Richard Dawkins

  Love, Hope, Wisdom

  The Selfish Gene ch. 1 (1976)

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• What you cannot have is a gene that sacrifices itself for the benefit of other genes. What you can have is a gene that makes organisms sacrifice themselves for other organisms under the influence of selfish genes.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Sacrifice, Benefits

  Faith and Reason - PBS, www.pbs.org.

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• The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

  Richard Dawkins

  Simple, Blind Belief, Curiosity

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.219, Oxford University Press

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• I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.

  Richard Dawkins

  Design, Waiting, Come Up

  Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.17, W. W. Norton & Company

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