Dawkins: The Greatest Show on Earth
Just another lovely lecture from our friends over at FORA.tv. From his new(?) book. I now want to read it.
Comments
I really can’t get enough of this guy. I hate how villanized he is simply for having opinions contrary to the religious community. I also hate that I really have no idea how to spell villainized.
I thought this was about Brian Dawkins. I’m a little disappointed, but now I’m thinking about Brian Dawkins lecturing on evolution and things are looking up.
I’m halfway through this book. It’s a good time, as are all his others. If you haven’t read his other stuff, I’d recommend starting with The Selfish Gene.
Banned Bill said:I’m halfway through this book. It’s a good time, as are all his others. If you haven’t read his other stuff, I’d recommend starting with The Selfish Gene.
Does this book play into or discuss the notion of selfishness as part of human nature, etc.? Regardless, what I’ve always found so fascinating is that I’m an atheist and a misanthrope and believe that all humans (all creatures to be exact) are by nature selfish, self interested, and motivated largely by self-preservation. However as a person I try to act against that, and have my notion of “self” be expanded out as much as possible to include family, friends, community, etc. But yet most of the religious people I know espouse and speak about community and being unselfish as a philosophy, but then in many cases (I’d say most but I’m trying to avoid sweeping generalizations) the way they act and live is completely solipsistic and selfish.
No, it’s not actually about that at all. The title refers to the idea that genes get passed on to successive generations to serve their own “interests” rather than the interests of the organism that contains the genes. It does address the fact that this view can be used to explain altruism (rather than selfishness) in nature – for example, a mother could sacrifice herself to save the lives of her 3 children, because even though this doesn’t serve her OWN best interests, it serves the best interests of her genes – with 3 children who share 50% of her DNA, 150% is a better gene-survival trade-off than her own 100%. He does a much better job explaining it than I do, but that’s the general idea.
Hmm…it sounds interesting…and my explanation may have been roundabout but what you described does dovetail into more or less my worldview, although not necessarily in terms of genetics, although clearly he has a way to explain it genetically speaking.