Candide (Chapter 1 and 2)

Candide is a bastard who was brought up in the house of a Baron. He was lectured by the "best" philosopher of Westphalia along with the children of the Baron. One day Lady Cunegonde saw their teacher having sex with a maid. She didn't know what this "experiment" was so she wanted to try it out. The next day she tried it with Candide after dinner and her father saw them. He obviously kicked Candide out of the house. He found two men who made him become one of the Bulgar King's men. He went, and thanks to his naivety and lack of knowledge he got into trouble.

The beginning of Candide doesn't only introduce us to the main character, but to satire which is the writing style Voltaire uses. Satire is used to make fun of something. The author uses it in such a great manner that I am enjoying the novel.

Hamlet Vocabulary

Capon: A castrated male chicken
Hither: Come here
Epitaph: A writing to commemorate a deceased person
Sheen: Shiny
Confound: to amaze or perplex
Accurst: To put a curse on
Fain: Gladly, content
Beguile: To influence, mislead
Jest: Joke

Chapter 12: Nice Guys Finish First

Chapter 12 is the most interesting chapter because it introduces the game, Prisoner's Dilemma and explains how it applies to Darwinism and the survival of the genes. The title of the chapter states something no one believes because nice guys (genes) tend to get stepped on and left behind. But Axelrod proves this is not correct by recollecting strategies for prisoner's dilemma and then making them compete against each other and amongst themselves. The first time he did it nice strategies won. Therefore he concluded that to win the strategy needs 'niceness and forgiveness'. The second time the strategies were divided in two groups: the very nice and forgiving and the very nasty. Niceness won again. although extreme niceness didn't. He then made it a survival game. After many generations nice strategies were the only survivors and all the nasty ones became extinct.

Reciprocal Altruism: Helping, but receiving help in return.

Prisoner's Dilemma: A game in which two players have two cards, they can either defect or cooperate. If they both defect they do fairly bad if the both cooperate they do fairly good and if one defects and the other one cooperates the sucker (the one who cooperates) does terribly and the other one does very well. Therefore the best move is always to defect but it will never benefit as much as mutual cooperation. The game is a dilemma.

The evolutionary stable strategies states that those strategies that reach an equilibrium will remain constant throughout evolution.

Passive/Active Voice

1.Joanne was delayed by a client when she was leaving the office.
2. A meeting was being held by the tennis club at 6.30.
3. Sheba,the dog,blocked the doorway.
4. Sheba had to be taken to the vet.
5. The vet was worried by her condition.
6. The vet treated the dog while Joanne went home.
7. Joanne was told to get out of the house.
8. Joanne was confused by the telephone call.
9. The burglar was captured by the police.
10. His fingers had been bitten off by the dog.

1. Those bottles cannot be easily opened by children.
2. A road was built right outside her front door by the government.
3. The antique vase was broken by Mr. Ross as he walked through the store.
4. The changes amazed her when she arrived.
5. Street repairs are being made by the construction workers all month long.
6. His retirement will be celebrated by the party.
7. His oral exam was being discussed by his professors in front of him.
8. The homemade cookies were eaten by my son.
9. The hull of the ship was damaged by corrosion.
10. While I was there the old homestead were being visited by some children.

Chapter 4: The Gene Machine

This chapter talks about the different characteristics a gene needs to have in order to survive. There are many similarities with machines and computer. Therefore Dawkins who loves metaphors uses them for comparison.

"Behavior is the trick of rapid movement which has been largely exploited by the animal branch of survival machines" (page 47). Sometimes gene cooperate with each other in order to survive (co-evolution). This is a behaviour.

The timing of our muscle contractions is controlled by our neurones. Only living things that have to move in order to survive have neurones (plants don't). Neurones are cells with a longer, thinner wire-like projections. Sense organs are controlled by neurones and having this favours living things in the process of natural selection.

In order to function consciousness is needed. Machines or living things need to be motivated. Negative feedback is the fundamental principle which consists in measuring "the discrepancy between a current state of things, and the 'desired' state" (page 50). One form is the Watt governor. Genes act this way in living things. They don't act for their survival machines they just instruct us. They do "general prediction", for example the thick and white fur a polar bear has. When this generalizations are correct the 'machine' survives and propagates those same genes"(page 56). Genes exert ultimate power over behaviour.

Chapter 3: The Inmortal Coil

The hardest chapter up till now has been this one. The other two are a simple introduction to the huge and difficult world of genetics. There are many important terms mentioned for the first time in chapter three and it is very important to define them. There is also a more complete definition for the word gene that I think is very important to write down.

Dawkins changes the metaphor he has been using. Pages no longer fulfills to represent the gene because it starts to break down. Therefore he uses a ticker tape.

The immortal coil is the DNA. "It consists of a pair of nucleotide chains twisted twisted together in an elegant spiral" (page 22). There are four types of nucleotides and every living thing has them in a different sequence. Human beings have 46 chromosomes divided into 23 pairs. One of the mother and one of the father.

A gene can be recessive when it is ignored and dominant. Two genes that are rivals are known as alleles.

Mitosis takes place when a cell divides into two. Meiosis is different because it only occurs in the sex cells and it only contains 23 chromosomes.

A cistron encodes the information of when to start and when to stop.

Genetic unit is "a length of chromosome"(page 29). The smaller it is, the more probable it is that you share it with someone else.

"A point mutation is an error corresponding to a single misprinted letter in a book" (page 31).

Inversion is another form of mutation that occurs when a piece of chromosome detaches rotates and reattaches.

Therefore Dawkins states that the gene is the basic unit because it has longevity, fecundity, copying fidelity,and it is almost indivisible. He the goes back to his original topic of selfishness and altruism and says that altruism is a bad characteristic and that genes are the first to be selfish.

Sexual reproduction vs. non-sexual reproduction....Evolution.

Chapter 2: The Replicators (Page 12-20)

In chapter 2 Dawkins explains his theory of the beginning of life and how Darwinism is applied. He believed it all starts very simply and then it becomes more complex. Dawkins said that the most stable things are those who stay. Therefore instead of being 'the survival of the fittest' it is 'the survival of the stable'. He describes the Haemoglobin molecule to illustrate the principle that atoms tend to fall into stable patterns . Therefore, he concludes that "the earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones"(page 13).

So then after a long, long time the 'replicator' which is a molecule that can copy itself is created and this provides stabilization. Dawkins calls this the 'primeval soup'. For the first time and error leads to improvement. When the 'replicator' copies itself wrongly a new type is created and sometimes this new one is stronger and better. There are also times when it is worst and in this case it probably extincts because 'the survival of the fittest' has already began.

The example of what comes out of an error that Dawkins uses is incredible. I never new that such a dumb mistake of translation could create a huge thing that still affects women and has created a judgment for 'good' and 'bad' women. If it weren't because of this mistake virginity wouldn't be such a big deal and the mentality of the women would probably be completely different.

But anyways, the survival of the replicators depended on "the individual molecule lasted a long time, or they replicated rapidly, or they replicated accurately" (page 18). But like the world is not infinite there is a final factor that affected the evolution of the replicator, competition. So Dawkins believed that this lead the replicators to build 'survival machines' and this machines ended up being our body and mind, and the replicators are now our genes.

This is a very satisfying and complete theory of how the world became what it is right now and how we began. I enjoy Dawkins way of writing and the organization of each of his chapters.