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Natural Selection
A replicator is any entity that can make copies of itself. Richard Dawkins argues that, in the natural world, the replicator is not the organism or the species, but, rather, little bits of DNA called genes. Dawkins argues that ideas, or memes, are also replicators, because their copies embed themselves in different people’s brains. Theoretically, a replicator can be any entity that is capable of making copies of itself. A replicator isn’t defined by what it’s made of, but by its function, which is making copies or clones of itself. For Dawkins, the replicator is the thing that is evolving in any form of evolution.
Replicator Quotes in The Selfish Gene
The The Selfish Gene quotes below are all either spoken by Replicator or refer to Replicator. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
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They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.
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Chapter 3
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A gene is defined as any portion of chromosomal material that potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection.
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Each entity must exist in the form of lots of copies, and at least some of the copies must be potentially capable of surviving—in the form of copies—for a significant period of evolutionary time. Small genetic units have these properties: individuals, groups, and species do not.
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Chapter 6
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[A] gene might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other bodies. If so, this would appear as individual altruism but it would be brought about by gene selfishness.
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Chapter 11
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But is there anything that must be true of all life, wherever it is found, and whatever the basis of its chemistry? […] Obviously I do not know, but if I had to bet, I would put my money on one fundamental principle. This is the law that all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the replicating entity that prevails on our own planet.
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I think that a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is starting us in the face. It is still in its infancy, still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup, but already it is achieving evolutionary change at a rate that leaves the old gene panting far behind. The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. “Mimeme” comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like “gene.” I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme.
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We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism—something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.
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Chapter 13
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The only kind of entity that has to exist in order for life to arise, anywhere in the universe, is the immortal replicator.
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Epilogue
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An organism has a frequency of one, and therefore cannot ‘serve as a unit of natural selection.’ Not in the same sense of replicator anyway.
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Replicator Term Timeline in The Selfish Gene
The timeline below shows where the term Replicator appears in The Selfish Gene. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: The Replicators
...atoms to attach in the same pattern as its original atoms. Dawkins call this a “replicator.”
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...tiny bit wrong once in a while. The primeval soup would then have slightly different replicators competing for free atoms. This sets up the conditions for natural selection. Does this mean...
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At some point, one of the slightly different replicators must have been copied in such a way that it had the capacity to “steal”...
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As more occasional miscopies were made, it’s likely that one replicator had the capacity to break down protein walls so that it could eat up the...
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...made us, and they “manipulate” us from inside. In effect, we are “lumbering robots” that replicators made to survive.
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Chapter 3: Immortal Coils
...the inside, the base chemistry of every living thing is the same: they all contain replicators (genes, or DNA) that are more or less the same type of molecule. This molecule...
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Chapter 4: The Gene Machine
The topic shifts from replicators to survival machines, meaning organisms, including humans. Dawkins wonders why many organisms have brains. He...
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Chapter 10: You Scratch My Back, I’ll Ride on Yours
...Without mitochondria, we would die. And without us, mitochondria would die. Similarly, viruses are parasitic replicators (DNA surrounded by protein) that have bypassed the need to be transferred through reproductive organs....
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Chapter 11: Memes: The New Replicators
Dawkins recalls that what makes genes special is that they are replicators. It might well be that on other planets based on silicone instead of carbon, or...
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...need not look at alien planets to figure this out, because “a new kind of replicator has emerged on earth.” It’s still in “infancy,” floating around in primeval soup, but it’s...
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The replicator in the soup of human culture is something that can rapidly imitate itself. Dawkins decides...
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...bit of a stretch. He thinks that for thousands of millions of years, the only replicator on Earth was DNA, but when the conditions arose for a new replicator, there’s no...
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...be a whole song, or just the catchiest part of it. These become slightly different replicators (just like genes).
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...is that human brains have the capacity for conscious foresight. Genes don’t—they are “unconscious, blind replicators.” Even though humanity’s genes (and memes) are “selfish,” we have “the power to defy the...
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Chapter 13: The Long Reach of the Gene
...of evolution. On one hand, there is a beguiling picture of genes—immortal coils, or DNA replicators—forming temporary colonies and passing through generations of mortal, throwaway survival machines. On the other hand,...
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...one way to get around the problem of talking about “individuals” is to talk about replicators and vehicles. The fundamental units of evolution are things that replicate. In humans, this is...
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...“group of organisms” are candidates for the “vehicle” role, but neither are candidates for the “replicator” role. Between individuals and groups, “individuals” win out as vehicles, because the category “group” is...
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...The manifesto begins with the claim that “fundamental unit—the “prime mover of all life”—is the replicator. A replicator is “anything in the universe of which copies are made.” Replicators come into...
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Since no copying process is perfect, slightly different replicators will emerge that are better or worse at making copies of themselves. The ones that...
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Replicators will find more and more elaborate ways of perpetuating themselves. Replicators survive because of their...
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At some point in time, this “ganging up of mutually compatible replicators” formalized into discrete vehicles: “cells, and later, many celled bodies.” The vehicles that evolved a...
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...organisms. The world is “criss-crossed” with arrows joining phenotypic effects to genes. Dawkins concludes that replicators are no longer peppered freely around the universe. They are packaged into individual bodies. Similarly,...
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