The Selfish Gene

Your genes built you to keep themselves alive. Richard Dawkins asks why living things sometimes look unselfish if evolution rewards what replicates, and answers from the gene's point of view: immortal strands of DNA use mortal bodies as survival machines. That switch explains why a squirrel risks an alarm call to warn relatives carrying copies of its genes, why relentless fighters and bluffing doves settle into a stable mix where neither tactic can fully drive out the other, and why cheating pays only until retaliation spreads. Dawkins even extends replication to culture, where a tune or catchphrase copies from mind to mind like a meme. You finish seeing bodies, behavior and ideas as strategies genes use to get copied.