Overview:
Genes are selfish. And in their selfishness, they cooperate. Genes do not necessarily have to be obeyed. Natural selection favors selfish genes to cooperate. But even for an altruistic group, difficult to prevent an individual dissenter from being introduced, or developing. An individual dissenter who is unwilling to sacrifice for the other individuals. The selfish individual would them have higher chances of reproduction. Producing more selfish individuals. Over time, the altruistic group will gain more selfish members, and become indistinguishable from the selfish group.

The ratio of cooperators to defectors depends on group stability. A group of only dissenters has less chance to survive than a group of cooperators, but a group of cooperators have limited ability to prevent dissenters. A stable group, even a collection of atoms, are permanent enough or common enough. Groups of atoms that obtain a stable pattern, tend to stay in the stable pattern. This is the general law of survival of the stable. In which survival of the fittest is a subset. That species evolve by natural selection. An idea that explains how complexity can arise from simplicity. Earliest form of natural selection was the rejection of unstable groups of atoms, while maintaining stable groups.

Evolution, Natural Selection, and the Gene:
Molecules that survived a primordial chemical pool, had the property of being able to produce copies of itself. A property that was highly improbable. Not all copies are perfect replicas, as mistakes happen. As copies are made from copies with errors, the errors cumulated. Errors within copies is usually seen as substandard, but within genes, they can create improvements. It is the mistakes and errors that make evolution possible.

Every species evolved through a process of natural selection. Inheritable traits from genes come from the surviving offspring of the species. Individuals which have more surviving offspring, have more influence over the traits of next generations. Natural selection is the non-random differential reproduction of genes.

Genes do not die or go senile. They utilize a succession of mortal bodies. Manipulating the body for self-interested purposes. Genes replicator using the body as a survival machine. DNA molecules are transient, but they do live on in copies.

Genes have a complicated way of controlling the body, and impossible to separate contributions to specific genes. Sometimes a single gene controls a variety of biological aspects, sometimes an aspect is controlled by many genes. There are genes that work against the rest of the genome. The environment impacts the effect of the gene. Gene success depends on a more predictable environment. The development of a capacity to learn came about as a means to compensate for lack of predictive power within unpredictable environments.

Group Formation, And Application:
Altruism is when an individual aids the welfare of another, at its own expense. Selfish behavior is when the individual benefits in welfare, at the expense of others. Even a trivial survival probability can change the course of evolution. Even within a group of altruists, there will be who dissent to make a sacrifice.

Groups composed of individuals willing to sacrifice themselves for other members of the group, have a higher chance of survival than a group containing individuals who place their own selfish interest first.

A strategy becomes an evolutionary stable strategy when there are no better alternative strategies. Which means that the individual’s best strategy, is the what most of the population is doing. An evolutionary stable strategy penalizes those trying to deviate from it. An evolutionary stable strategy is immune from treachery from within. Conspiracies, such as human pacts, have individuals that are constantly tempted to break the pact.

There are many examples of animals fighting in a restrained manner, as they do not provide a killing blow. There is more to the restraint shown than just reduction in costs for time and energy. Animal societies are complex systems in which it does not help the individual to kill all rivals. Removing a rival, can even be more beneficial to other rivals than the individual.

Caveats?
The writing can be difficult. Concepts about evolution, natural selection, and genes have advanced. There are a variety of examples showcasing how evolution influenced various species. Some of the examples are too theoretic and abstract, as they explain a potentially evolutionary stable concept. There are practice examples as well.
The focus is on genetics, which can miss alternative factors that influence how a species behaves. A factor that influences behavior is culture. Culture is social learning, that can override many self-interested behaviors. There is a reference of learning compensating for uncertainty in the environment, but the alternative factors are limited. ( )

This is a one way journey to the truth. Reader beware ( )

M.3.3

Only two complaints with this book. First, the author had a habit of introducing an idea and then saying that it wasn't really relevant to the book, and would drop it. It was weird to hit these dead ends, and made for disjointed reading. Second, the author used "man" in the supposedly universal sense, which doesn't actually exist (All men are mortal; Sarah is a man; therefore Sarah is mortal). Since this book was first written in the 1970s, when apparently logic did not exist (bellbottoms!), I'll let this slide. We are all a product of our times, and back in the author's day this was a reasonable way to write. Aside from these two issues, I loved the book. ( )

I read this book for English class in college. I thought it was well-written from a technical perspective, but its fundamental idea self-contradicts so much, I had to give it a low rating.

Basically, Dawkins starts off by saying "Genes aren't selfish or unselfish..." followed by writing a whole book trying to show how genes are, in fact, selfish. That's the contradiction. He simultaneously attests that genes do not exist in the world of human morality, but at the same time strictly follow a selfish human morality.

He further explains that every 'selfish' action a gene takes is 'by design', and every 'altruistic' one is 'a mis-firing' of a selfish action. So, looking at a natural phenomenon, he's decided that every time it does something "selfish" it's doing what it should, and every time it does something "altruistic" it's not doing what it should. "Should" according to whom? It's a natural phenomenon without morality!

It would be as if I were staring at a weather vane, and every time it pointed East, saying "oh the wind is doing what it's supposed to", and every time it pointed West I said "oh, that's a mis-firing of the wind, which is always Easterly by nature".

At the end though, there's an unrelated section in which he talks about how ideas spread and reproduce like genes. He actually coins the term 'meme' in this book to describe the unit of an idea. This blob is worth reading, in my opinion. The rest, well... ( )