The Selfish Gene

The correct word of the title to stress is 'gene' and let me explain why.

Given that the Darwinian message is going to be pithily encapsulated as The Selfish Something, that something turns out to be the gene.

It is sobering to realise that I have lived nearly half my life with The Selfish Gene — for better, for worse.

I hope that takes care of the more serious misunderstandings.

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

The critical question is which level in the hierarchy of life will turn out to be the inevitably 'selfish' level, at which natural selection acts?

Given that the Darwinian message is going to be pithily encapsulated as The Selfish Something, that something turns out to be the gene, for cogent reasons which this book argues.

It is a moral fallacy ... to suppose that genetically inherited traits are by definition fixed and unmodifiable.

Each gene is seen as pursuing its own self-interested agenda against the background of the other genes in the gene pool.

This book will show how both individual selfishness and individual altruism are explained by the fundamental law that I am calling gene selfishness.