The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition (Oxford Landmark Science) — Why are people?

1. 1. All pre-1859 answers to questions about human purpose are worthless except for historical interest.
2. 2. The Selfish Gene does not advocate selfishness as a moral principle; it describes a statistical tendency in gene behavior.
3. 3. Genes determine behavior only in a statistical sense, similar to how a red sky at night statistically predicts fine weather.
4. 4. The Chicago gangster analogy was about how environment shapes success, not about human nature being inherently selfish.
5. 5. Dawkins regrets the political asides in the 1976 edition, which now sound like Tory rhetoric due to changed political context.
6. 6. In some insect species, the female improves the male's sexual performance by eating his head.
7. 7. The fundamental unit of natural selection is the gene, not the species, group, or individual.
8. 8. Dawkins now believes there may be selection for evolvability—whole classes of organisms better at evolving—distinct from group selection.