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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Selfish Gene, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Gene’s Eye View of Evolution
Selfishness, Altruism, and Cooperation
Culture and Memes
The Unit of Evolution
Summary
Analysis
The topic shifts from replicators to survival machines, meaning organisms, including humans. Dawkins wonders why many organisms have brains. He thinks that at some point in history, a mutation or inversion must have given rise to a gene with the capacity to build neurons (brain cells). Neurons are able to coordinate muscle contractions at high speed. This means that that organisms with neurons are able to move about, escape from predators more effectively, and survive to reproduce. Dawkins explains memory in the same way. Memories enable movements to be learned and repeated, something that’s also necessary for coordinated motion.
Dawkins knows that if he is going to convince his readers that human beings are really just protective shells built by genes to facilitate their survival, he needs to explain away all the things that make us feel we are too special to be mere survival machines. First, he tackles brains and memories by reframing both as capabilities that enable coordinated motion like running. This allows organisms to escape from fast-moving predators (or predators to catch fast-moving prey) so that they survive to reproduce and pass on their genes.
Themes
Another issue is the sense of agency that organisms have.—it doesn’t feel like human beings are puppets controlled by little genes inside us. Dawkins thinks a good way to explain this is to think of genes as computer programmers. Programmers don’t manipulate a chess-playing computer every time the computer needs to make a move. Rather, they program the computer with the rules of chess (or instructions for how to play chess), and the computer calculates what to do in the moment based on the instructions provided. Dawkins thinks this is how genes operate.
Dawkins explains that even though humans experience life as if we are free beings that make our own choices, our genes are still responsible for our experience. The computer programmer analogy shows that humans (computers) can only make choices within the parameters of our genetic “programming.” So, even though it feels like we are acting freely, genes are ultimately in charge because they wrote the “rules.”
Themes
It seems a bit strange that genes give so much control brains they build. Why don’t they assert more direct control if their survival depends on it? Dawkins thinks they can’t, because of “time lag problems.” A good way to explain the phenomenon of “time lag problems” is the science fiction story “A for Andromeda” by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot. In the story, a civilization of Andromedans wants to control Earth, but they live 200 light years away. This means they can send out radio signals (which travel at the speed of light), but they won’t live long enough to hear any responses from Earth. So, they send out coded instructions for building a computer (programmed to control humans on a day-to-day basis), which humans unknowingly decode and build.
Dawkins uses his Andromedans analogy to explain that while human beings do have powerful brains, that intelligence can’t override the authority of our genes. Andromedans can’t control humans by sending messages to them and interpreting human responses, because communication between Andromedans and humans takes so long. Similarly, a gene can’t directly make a survival machine act quickly enough to function effectively in its natural environment (for running when seeing a predator). Like Andromedans, genes need a workaround, so they build brains.
Themes
Dawkins thinks genes “manipulate” organisms in the same way that Andromedans “manipulate” humans: indirectly. Genes work by controlling protein synthesis, but it’s a very slow process. To get around this, genes build brains, which function to make short term decisions according to their genetic programming. The genes are “master programmers” and they are “programming for their lives.”
The Andromedans and the instructions they send out represent genes. The resulting computer that’s built represents an organism’s brain: it does the dirty work of controlling humans that Andromedans can’t do themselves. Similarly, genes can’t synthesize protein quickly enough to enable survival machines to act in swiftly changing environments, so they create brains. But if this chain of command is followed all the way to the top, genes (like Andromedans) are indirectly in charge.
Themes
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Because genes have to program survival machines and hope for the best after that point, the programming is a “gamble.” One way that genes reduce the risk involved is to build organisms that can learn from their environments, to face unexpected circumstances as well as possible. This is where humans’ sense of consciousness comes from, as we often run imaginary scenarios (or “simulations”) in our heads before acting.
Even though individuals experience life as a unified conscious “self,” including thoughts and imagination, these too are workarounds that help survival machines function when facing unexpected circumstances. Dawkins believes that feeling like an individual does not challenge the authority of the many genes that live inside is.
Themes
Finally, Dawkins addresses communication among organisms. Many survival machines communicate to enhance their chances of survival. For example, baby birds “cheep” when they are lost so their mother can find them. Some organisms even lie because it increases their survival chances. For example, a bird might make a sound to warn other birds that “there is a hawk” nearby, when there actually isn’t one. The other birds will fly away, leaving all the food in that area for the chirping bird, which increases its chances of survival. Dawkins warns that whenever a system of communication evolves, “lies and deceit” (or “exploitation”) should be expected to arise when the interests of different individuals diverge.
Dawkins also reframes communication as a tool that enable genes to survive. An organism that can communicate—either honestly or dishonestly—is able to leverage the behavior of other organisms in its quest for resources. Ultimately, Dawkins thinks that the things that make complex organisms seem unified as one thing—like coordinated motion, memory, choices, self-consciousness, learning, imagination, and communication—are really just tools that exist because they give the genes living inside an organism a better chance of surviving.
Themes
