The title of this book is "The Selfish Gene". It will probablly seem dumb that it is until chapter 10 when I understood what Dawkins meant about a gene being selfish. He talks about the "selfish herd." Dawkins states that animals will normally stick together to protect themselves from predators, but that there will always be some that are more likely to be killed. He used the example of when animals line up together, there will always be some that are more vulnerable to being killed. "Unfortunately somebody has to be on the edge, but as far as each individual is concerned it is not going to be him!" This shows how every animal including humans does everything for their own benefit. He showed how animals stay together in order to find more food and fight together in order for it to be less probable that they will be killed. It is not because of support that they are in a herd, but it is for each individuals benefit. Is it the same way with humans? Are we that selfish that we don't even realized what we are doing? Do we just hang in groups so that we are more protected from society? Is it fear that keeps us from doing what we want, and we follow what others do to be protected? Just think about trends. Most people dress in similar ways and there are only few that really use their own style. From a large group they seem weird just because they are different but at the end of the day the weird ones are us who dress like clones.
As I am reading I am starting to dislike even more our "nature" because it seems as if all of us were selfish. It is something that I hadn't thought about before but this book is persuaying me to believe that unfortunately we are. When Dawkins says the frase "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" (Pg. 166) makes me question if we are really good people? Do we just do good deeds so we receive them back? Karma? Or is it really because of good will?
Since I was little my parents taught me values, that I had to be a good person. But am I just a good person because of what I was taught or is it my nature to be good? What would happen if I didn't have values?
Are we the ones that chose how we are or is it the society that surrounds us?
Are we selfish?
As I was reading chapter three various things grabbed my attention. "Natural selection" was a term that got me thinking. Dawkins says that we all have the same DNA but the only difference is how the nucleotides are organized. This would be the part of natural selection because it is the way that they organize eachother. But then again, why do they decide to organize eachother a specific way? Who tells them to organize that way?
The nucleotides are like workers in a factory, they keep the factory working but they receive orders from someone to do them. There has to be someone in charge of this, and restating the point of my previous blog it should be God. Leading me to another question, who is God?
What is the purpose of everything in life? Dawkins talks about how DNA is the same for every organism that lives. "Baisically the same kind of a molecule in all of us from bacteria to elephants." (Pg 21) Why was I chosen to be a human? Why is my dog a dog? I know that they are things that we just accept because it is a part of our lives but I can't help going in deeper about the subject.
When I started reading this book I thought that it was going to be boring because it states the same things as my biology class. But as I start reading I find that Dawkins has a techinique that makes me want to be stuck in the book because it makes me ask many questions that I had never thought about before.
In class we have discussed if genes are the ones responsible for our personality. I argue that genes are the ones that carry out the information of our physical traits. We develope the person that we are through our lives due to the experiences that we go through and the values that we are taught. Just because a persons parents are serial killers, it doesn't mean that the offspring will be too. It is probable that he/she will see it as if it was nothing wrong because it is what they see at home, but it doesn't mean that they too will do what they do. This reminds me of a quote that I saw on my friends's facebook the other day,
"We spend our whole lives becoming ourselves, when we are born as no one else."
While I was reading the book this grabbed my attention: "It means that genes are at least partly responsible for their own survival in the future, because their survival depends on the efficiency of the bodies in which they live and which the helped to build." (Pg. 24) Meaning that genes are the escence of our life but we are the ones in charge of keeping them healthy to be able to pass them on and reproduce so that our population doesn't become extinct. Just because our parents can pass us good genes, it doesn't mean that we are always going to have them in that stage. During our lives we can make great mistakes affecting our bodies, affecting our offspring.
I want to keep on reading this book, its like Dawkins is telling me important facts, but as he does this he makes me wonder if what he says is true. Although it can be frusturating sometimes because there are no answers to my questions, it is exciting to believe that maybe one day there will be.
Where are we from? That is a question that I ask myself all the time. Its one that everyone asks themselves. Some ask it more than others, but at the end of the day we are all waiting for the answer. As time has passed, historians, scientists, doctors, mathematicians have all found answers to our questions, but to this important one no answer has popped up.
Dawkins gives important information towards this fact. It is interesting how he states everything so direct. He says that we are made up of genes and we are the "survial machines". "The replicators that have survived were the ones that built the survival machines." Pag 19. It is very interesting the way that he uses different key terms for a normal fact. Survival machine=human. We are the "survival machines". It is odd to start thinking of ourselves as machines, as if we were just things walking around, but in a way we are. We live, do the things we need to do and then die. Nobody knows what happens when we do, although I believe in heaven. So its not quite nice to think that we are just machines because they have no souls, and if there is no souls then who goes to heaven?
There is a God that takes care of all these things. Its true that we are made up of genes, but those genes had to have an escense. And who created them? God.
Faith is an important part of my life, and it is the competition of science. People are making great discoveries and start placing religion aside. They say that there is not a logic explanation for a person to create everything and be the reason for our existence. But again, it isn't logical for there to be all of these explanations without an essence. Therefore, Dawkins is right that we are made up of genes but they are not the explanation of our existence.
Where are we from? That is a question that I ask myself all the time. Its one that everyone asks themselves. Some ask it more than others, but at the end of the day we are all waiting for the answer. As time has passed, historians, scientists, doctors, mathematicians have all found answers to our questions, but to this important one no answer has popped up.
Dawkins gives important information towards this fact. It is interesting how he states everything so direct. He says that we are made up of genes and we are the "survial machines". "The replicators that have survived were the ones that built the survival machines." Pag 19. It is very interesting the way that he uses different key terms for a normal fact. Survival machine=human. We are the "survival machines". It is odd to start thinking of ourselves as machines, as if we were just things walking around, but in a way we are. We live, do the things we need to do and then die. Nobody knows what happens when we do, although I believe in heaven. So its not quite nice to think that we are just machines because they have no souls, and if there is no souls then who goes to heaven?
There is a God that takes care of all these things. Its true that we are made up of genes, but those genes had to have an escense. And who created them? God.
Faith is an important part of my life, and it is the competition of science. People are making great discoveries and start placing religion aside. They say that there is not a logic explanation for a person to create everything and be the reason for our existence. But again, it isn't logical for there to be all of these explanations without an essence. Therefore, Dawkins is right that we are made up of genes but they are not the explanation of our existence.
The title of this book is "The Selfish Gene". It will probablly seem dumb that it is until chapter 10 when I understood what Dawkins meant about a gene being selfish. He talks about the "selfish herd." Dawkins states that animals will normally stick together to protect themselves from predators, but that there will always be some that are more likely to be killed. He used the example of when animals line up together, there will always be some that are more vulnerable to being killed. "Unfortunately somebody has to be on the edge, but as far as each individual is concerned it is not going to be him!" This shows how every animal including humans does everything for their own benefit. He showed how animals stay together in order to find more food and fight together in order for it to be less probable that they will be killed. It is not because of support that they are in a herd, but it is for each individuals benefit. Is it the same way with humans? Are we that selfish that we don't even realized what we are doing? Do we just hang in groups so that we are more protected from society? Is it fear that keeps us from doing what we want, and we follow what others do to be protected? Just think about trends. Most people dress in similar ways and there are only few that really use their own style. From a large group they seem weird just because they are different but at the end of the day the weird ones are us who dress like clones.
