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Dawkin’s selfish gene theory accounts for a mother’s decision to sacrifice her life for her child because Dawkins says “We are preprogrammed through our evolution to help our genes survive, either in our own person or through our nearest relatives.” His theory also states that “human behavior is an instinctive way to promote the survival not of the individual but of his or her genes.” And in this case where a mother sacrifices her life for her child she is doing that to save her families genes and allow her child to live on and have a chance to create more of their families genes. Dawkin would explain a firefighter’s decision to risk his life to save a stranger by saying that there is a built in urge to promote one’s genes but when humans
The. The “Challenging Darwin”. Bioscience. 2(2005). The 'Secondary' of the 'S 101, eLibrary.
Julian Savulescu tries to argue on the grounds of Utilitarianism that parents have a moral duty to improve their children’s genetic makeup in the same way that they would improve the child’s “environment” or prevent diseases (The Ethical Life, 443). Julian thinks this is a duty because it will yield the most positive outcomes or consequences. He believes that failure to use genetic enhancements, when a parent has an opportunity to benefit their child, is neglecting the child’s needs which is morally wrong (The Ethical Life, 443). Julian also defends his position by claiming that it would be inconsistent to “train our children to behave well”, but then refuse to seek genetic enhancements for our children so they have the tools to succeed, when
In the wild and brutal game of life, the only measure of true success is whether genes are passed on. Like any other animal, this measure of success measures man's success too. For all creatures, to survive is the chance at continuing a gene line, and it is this necessity to continue the line that is innately embedded in man and all other creatures.
"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," usually shortened to "the Origin of Species," is the full title of Charles Darwin's book, first published in 1859, in which Darwin formalized what we know today as the Theory of Evolution. Although Darwin is the most famous exponent of this theory, he was by no means the first person to suspect the workings of evolution. In fact, Charles owed a considerable debt to his grandfather Erasmus, a leading scientist and intellectual, who published a paper in 1794, calledZoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life. This set down many of the ideas that his grandson elaborated on 70 years later.
In this essay I will discuss that I do not agree with Richard Dawkins and will prove this by using the theory of Intelligent Design as to why I do not agree with him.
Today, realising that genes and environment cooperate and interact synergistically, traditional dichotomy of nature vs. nurture is commonly seen as a false dichotomy. Especially operant conditioning, i.e. the learning of the consequences of one's own behavior can lead to positive feedback loops between genetic predispositions and behavioral consequences that render the question as to cause and effect nonsensical. Positive feedback has the inherent tendency to exponentially amplify any initial small differences. For example, an at birth negligible difference between two brothers in a gene affecting IQ to a small percentage, may lead to one discovering a book the will spark his interest in reading, while the other never gets to see that book. One becomes an avid reader who loves intellectual challenges while the other never finds a real interest in books, but hangs out with his friends more often. Eventually, the reading brother may end up with highly different IQ scores in standardized tests, simply because the book loving brother has had more opportunities to train his brain. Had both brother received identical environmental input, their IQ scores would hardly differ.
4) In Defense of Selfish Genes , Dawkins refute to claims made about his theory by Mary Midgely
Trait theory, or the concept that personality traits are strong, independent predictors of behavior, provides an incomplete picture of human behavior, thought, and emotion. The most encompassing approach to understanding behavioral implications is by approaching them from a person-situation interaction perspective. Bowers (1973) reported that while 13% of the variance in predicting behavior is due to the person (i.e., traits) and 10% of the variance is due to the situation, 21% of the variance is accounted for by the person-situation interaction; the interaction is more predictive than either one alone. Different situations impact different people differently for several reasons, including the fact that strong traits may not be expressed in
defends the argument that humans are not solely defined by their nature or nurture, but by both. The
The metaphor behind Dawkins' theory can best be described by his opening statement: "we are survival machines-robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (Barlow 193). Dawkins links the natural behavior of unconscious bunches of nucleic acid (genes) to human behavior and personality by calling them "selfish." His use of this term conjures up the image of a separate individual, capable of making decisions to help its own good and disregarding our needs. By calling human beings "survival machines" and "robots," Dawkins suggests some serious moral implications regarding our existence. If we were just robots, it would seem that we would be no longer responsible for our actions, as people could attribute all evil to the gene programmers who created these robots. Also, if our primary purpose were to serve as a "survival machine" for something else, life would seem insignificant. John Maynard Smith writes that Dawkins' book is just about evolution, and "not about morals . . . or about the human sciences" (195). However, the attempt to disengage the selfish gene theory from its moral implications is seriously undermined by Dawkins' metaphors.
The concept of Social Darwinism was a widely accepted theory in the nineteenth-century. Various intellectual, and political figures from each side of the political spectrum grasped the theory and interpreted it in various ways. In this paper, we will discuss three different nineteenth-century thinkers and their conception of Social Darwinism. The conservative, Heinrich von Treitschke, and liberal Herbert Spencer both gave arguments on the usefulness of competition between people on a global scale. The anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, refuted the belief of constant competition among members of the same species and emphasized mutual aid.
vs. nurture. I will also try to present the third, new-emerging approach meant to. solve the mystery of, “What is it that makes us who we are?” “Our genes make us. We animals exist for their preservation and are nothing more than their throwaway survival machines.”
Charles Darwin has had the greatest influence on the world by proving the evolution of living things. Charles Darwin had first noticed the similarities of plants and animals when he took a five-year cruise on the H.M.S. Beagle, which was available to him through a friend from school. During the cruise Charles Darwin started becoming interested with the similarities between the plants and animals that were similar on different islands with similar climates, so he decided to study them more closely.
Humans have been studied over a period of long time in order to understand our process to do things and what thoughts go into that process. Human nature varies and is unpredictable, it has been studied for so long over the past few centuries that one thing is for certain; the building blocks of it is essentially the same to every human being. One of the fundamentals of human nature is the selfish gene and The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins “show how both individual selfishness and individual altruism are explained by the fundamental law that I am calling gene selfishness” (Dawkins 6). For those who want to understand Dawkins’ theory about the selfish gene, one must be somewhat accustomed with Charles Darwin and his ideas about evolution, which should not be hard because it has been taught to us since middle school. Darwin’s theory of evolution is the fundamental blocks of Dawkins’ idea on the selfish gene. It’s a safe assumption to say that Darwin would have understood Dawkins’ theory and have agreed with it based on the fact that it is essentially Darwin’s theory. Dawkins intended for the book to be read by three groups of people describing them as, “the layman, the expert and the student,” (Dawkins xxi). He wanted to entice them to understand that while there are two ways to look at natural selection, gene and individual, he was going to concentrate on social behavior. In order to do that he has broken down the book into eight main parts that consists of: the concepts of altruistic and selfish behavior, genetic definition of self-interest, deceit, sex ratio theory, evolution of aggressive behavior, kinship theory, reciprocal altruism, and natural selection of sex differences.
There are many cases of mothers having an unwanted child, but soon after they are born they fall in love with their baby. Reported evidence reveals that women and men who did not want to have their child have later reported that they were satisfied as parents of those children (Burtcheall, 1983, p. 130). As a society, people have become selfish. Abortion is a prime example of society’s selfishness. Individuals put themselves first and everyone else second, this is what mothers today are doing. They are putting themselves first and their unborn children second. When parents do this they are committing murder.