Transcript of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins | Book Summary |Science for the soul

hello and namaste it seems like a sacrilege to discuss a book written by richard dawkins the most celebrated atheist here on this channel but the selfish gene is a brilliant book and the message of this book provides a stark contrast to the previous ones i reviewed welcome to temples books and science today i want to talk to you about two inspiring things from this book that stayed with me many years after i read it this book begins with those timeless questions which have been haunting mankind is there a meaning to life what are we here for according to dawkins every organism including humans came into being for the explicit purpose of propagating genes we have no higher purpose we are basically robust the genes created for self-preservation and propagation evolution is not about the survival of the species it is about the survival of genes 99 of the organisms that ever existed have become extinct genes don't care about which organisms live or die they just need robust containers that can nurture and propagate them we are the survival missions for the genes even after we are long gone our genes will continue to exist in other survival machines which may not resemble us in any way simply put this is the meaning of our lives in spite of its apparent cynicism there are a few truly inspiring themes in this book the first is about altruism that is putting another person's interest before our self-interest all the values that we were taught as children kindness forgiveness sharing sacrificing do they have any place in this theory of creation if genes created us to preserve themselves then taking care of our self-interest would be the best method of ensuring their survival isn't it so why do we develop altruism i spoke about the hidden life of trees on this channel we saw how even trees cooperate with each other share the food they produce and nurture their sick these are not uniquely human qualities like we often assume all living beings seem to understand the importance of these values how and why did these qualities evolve we all have heard the phrase nice guys finish last in the language of jeans if you help others at your own expense you are not likely to survive long compared to people who solely take care of their self-interest scientists developed a method for testing this hypothesis they wanted to find the answer to the question thus taking care of your own self-interest at the expense of others give the best reward they developed a computer simulation program to identify the best strategy for long-term survival of a species they used 63 different strategies in the simulation these strategies were categorized into two buckets mean and nice mean strategies were selfish unforgiving and greedy the nice strategies were cooperating trusting and forgiving the computer simulation pitted these strategies against one another to see which ones have the best survival advantage each time they found that the nice strategies won in the long run and the main strategies lost out in the long run the strategies which incorporated cooperation trust generosity and forgiveness had the best survival numbers while selfish greedy and vengeful strategies consistently failed the popular adage nice guys finish last is wrong as far as evolution is concerned it appears that nice guys finish first what a heartwarming discovery isn't it i have always been fascinated by these words of einstein everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe a spirit vastly superior to that of man when i read about things like this i understand exactly what he meant now let me tell you about the second thing from the book that fascinated me dawkins asked another interesting question are jeans the only things that evolve what is it that makes jeans special they are replicators they can make copies of themselves this quality is the building block of life we can go to anywhere in the universe it is possible that we find strange life forms that are not carbon based it is even possible that they are not based on chemistry like all living things on earth it is possible that they are made up of electronic circuits but there is one general principle that is true of all life they have to be capable of making copies of themselves based on this principle dawkins puts forward another theory he says a new kind of replicator has emerged in our planet which has the same quality of rapidly multiplying and spreading it is achieving evolutionary changes at massive speeds that genes could never achieve can you take a guess what these are dawkins says memes are the new replicators you should remember that this book was written in 1976 much before social media and even the internet imagine how prescient this is in fact it is dawkins who coined the word memes from a greek word meaning imitation dawkins defines memes as ideas catch phrases tunes fashion etc just like genes leap from one body to another memes leap from one brain to another through imitation take the example of tunes which stick to your head and spread like wildfire memes can be regarded as living structures not just metaphorically but technically when you plant a fertile meme in a person's spine it takes over the brain like a parasite and turns it into a vehicle for its propagation similar to a virus one example of a fertile meme is the belief in life after death just think how this meme has shaped the life of generations of humans it has impacted the decisions of men for thousands of years just like jeans shaped our body and mind this meme shaped our civilization and culture can you imagine how different the human civilization would be if this meme had not existed according to dawkins the idea of god is also a powerful meme which is as old as mankind itself memes replicate through the process of imitation just like all genes cannot replicate successfully all memes are also not successful this is similar to natural selection memes which have a high survival value tend to persist some memes like some genes achieve brilliant short-term success in spreading rapidly but do not last long just like several genes come together to form a living being similarly several memes have joined together to form meme complexes for example all our bodies are a combination of thousands of genes which form a cohesive unit other genes cannot easily invade this gene complex similarly religion is an example of a meme complex every religion is a collection of several memes which form a single cohesive unit which new memes cannot invade dawkins concludes with an optimistic note about memes when we die we leave both our genes and memes behind with each generation the contribution of our genes is halved queen elizabeth is a direct descendant of william the conqueror but it is highly probable that she does not bear a single one of his genes seeking immortality through reproduction is not very efficient but if you contribute to the world culture if you have a good idea compose a tune invent the light bulb write a poem it may live on intact long after your genes have dissolved into the common pool we don't know if any of socratus's gene is alive today but the memes of socrates shankaracharya nicus and buddha are still going strong it is some food for thought isn't it we don't just leave behind our biological children our thoughts our ideas and our creations are also our children that's it from me thank you for watching please subscribe and press the bell icon for reminders please share it with your friends and like-minded people until next time namaste