Chapter 1: Why are people?

Richard Dawkins introduces his theory of evolution. He begins explaining how it all starts with Darwinism. Evolution consists on the 'survival of the fittest'. Then he defines selfishness and altruism in the living things, and combines them to finally conclude that our genes are in the competition to survive.

Altruism is the act of risking oneself for the well being of another, and selfishness is exactly the opposite. But for Dawkins altruism is "really selfishness in disguise"(page 4). The examples he gives about the two concepts make them look very different. However, he believes that "anything that has evolved by natural selection should be selfish"(page 4). Darwinism spoke of 'the survival of the species' Dawkins modified it to 'the survival of the gene'. When a living thing has an altruist behavior it is risking himself for the rest of his species, therefore even if he dies he is doing it selfishly for the rest of his species. The selfishness stops being individual. I would describe it by saying: 'I am selfish for us'. The example that called my attention the most was the mother and her child. She will most probably risk her life for her baby, but the truth is that she is protecting the reproduction of her species. She is acting selfishly because she wants this baby to live so it can grow and reproduce. I was also amazed when I compared the example of the soldiers and the kamikaze fighter bees. They risk their lives to save the honey for the community just as the soldiers risk theirs for their people.

I completely agree with the theory of the selfish gene and I think it is a logic interpretation of how the living things work. I also enjoyed reading this first chapter because Dawkins gives a brief but complete introduction of what the selfish gene is.