The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition (Oxford Landmark Science) — Foreword to First Edition

1. 1. Humans and chimpanzees share about 99.5% of their evolutionary history, yet most human thinkers view chimps as irrelevant oddities while seeing themselves as stepping-stones to the Almighty.
2. 2. Natural selection is the non-random differential reproduction of genes, and it has built us; understanding it is essential to comprehend our identities.
3. 3. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, combined with Mendel's genetics, has been widely neglected in social sciences and even within biology.
4. 4. Dawkins presents major themes of social theory based on natural selection: altruism, selfish behavior, genetical self-interest, aggression, kinship, sex ratio, reciprocal altruism, deceit, and sex differences.
5. 5. If deceit is fundamental in animal communication, then strong selection to spot deception should select for self-deception, making some facts unconscious to avoid betraying the deception.
6. 6. Darwinian social theory is not reactionary; it establishes genetic equality of the sexes and shows no inherent tendency for parents to dominate offspring.
7. 7. Understanding the underlying symmetry and logic in social relationships from Darwinian theory should revitalize political understanding and support a science of psychology.