The Characteristics Of Natural Selection In The Selfish Gene By Dawkins

more abundant in the next generation. Over many generations the better-suited version predominates. This happens over and over from species to species, in small increments of change, to build entirely new species. In this way, natural selection has built all living things, including us. In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins defines the basic theory this way:
We are survival machines, but “we” does not mean just people. It embraces all animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses…An octopus is nothing like a mouse, and both are quite different from an oak tree. Yet in their fundamental chemistry they are rather uniform, and, in particular, the replicators which they bear, the genes, are basically the same kind of molecule in all of us – from bacteria
“The chief characteristic of such behavior is that it becomes superfluous after the goal has been reached.” An automatic thermostat is a simple example. The thermostat causes the heat to be raised until the desired temperature is reached, then stops. Once an ape attains high status he/she changes behavior and no longer aggressively seeks more status. De Waal maintains, “Humans are talking primates and that their behavior is not very different from chimpanzees.” Seeking higher human status is a common heritable behavior. We are programmed to notice and value achievement and displays of wealth, unconsciously valuing them for status. We do not choose to value them; we don’t even think about why we value them. We are programmed to do that. Every now and then a group of ascetic monks or beatniks or hippies or anarchists come along and consciously reject these behaviors, but most of us accept their value without question. The person with the big house, fancy car, and diamond ring is almost universally admired in every culture, particularly in ours, and the animal rewards include more sex, better food, and greater creature comforts. Achievement that results in recognition, admiration, even envy is one way to attain higher status. As Dr. Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at the University of Warwick in England had to say on “The Infinite Mind” on NPR:
People are born
Just as our brains construct models that we use to understand the world around us, our society constructs a symbolic play of illusion in which we tacitly agree to play our various roles. We seek what Becker calls “heroism in some kind of self-transcending drama”.” Calling our activities illusion and theatre is not meant to imply they are always harmful. We all need illusions to function, and self-transcending drama is one of life’s great pleasures. (More on this in Chapter Eleven.) For most Americans, however, caught up as we are in the drama, the outcome becomes more important than the