The Selfish Gene Chapter Summary

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Recommended: Darwin Theory of Evolution

The Selfish Gene is a book by Richard Dawkins that encompasses the meaning of life by talking about natural selection and evolution. Richard Dawkins defines the process of passing genes down between all species as a “selfish” nature. Dawkins also writes about how there are things such as, the “replicators” and “gene machines” which explain how organisms of species are made and how they develop. Overall he makes points about genes and how they are passed down from generation to generation by ancestors who were good at what they did. Then those ancestors were able to reproduce and pass down genes to continue a long line of evolution. The discussion starts at his first chapter Why are people?, which during the chapter Richard Dawkins explains …show more content…

In the beginning of the book he talks about what the book was not going to be about and gave good guidelines overall. He was able to give good information about the topic with some other credible books and was also able to put some of his own insight towards the book. The audience that he seems to be targeting are college students and above because of how he went about talking about sections and the discussions he brought up. Being a high school student, there were some spots that would be hard to understand or areas that were slow and hard to keep attention towards. Though overall it was a good read and I would recommended to anyone that would be interested in genes and how they are passed down. As a result of this book, The Selfish Gene, a broader understanding of evolution and natural selection was brought to mind. Richard Dawkins was able to tie in some debate about the whole process and give great knowledge and insight about the topic of his book. He brought up good thought provoking discussion with the main ideas of “selfish” nature to continue existing. He also brought up different things known as “replicators” and “gene machines” that would explain how every organism that wanted to stay alive developed. All in all life is precious, so wouldn’t you be a little selfish to stay in

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