A Quote by Richard Dawkins

What you cannot have is a gene that sacrifices itself for the benefit of other genes. What you can have is a gene that makes organisms sacrifice themselves for other organisms under the influence of selfish genes.

Richard Dawkins

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Benefit Cannot Gene Genes Influence Itself Makes Organisms Other Sacrifice Sacrifices Selfish Selfish Gene Themselves

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Richard Dawkins
English - Scientist
Born: March 26, 1941

Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.

Steven Pinker

Complex organisms cannot be construed as the sum of their genes, nor do genes alone build particular items of anatomy or behavior by themselves. Most genes influence several aspects of anatomy and behavior as they operate through complex interactions with other genes and their products, and with environmental factors both within and outside the developing organism. We fall into a deep error, not just a harmful oversimplification, when we speak of genes "for" particular items of anatomy or behavior.

Stephen Jay Gould

When we talk about genes for anything, like a gene for being gay or a gene for being aggressive or something of that sort, that a gene for anything may not have been a gene for that thing under different environmental conditions.

Richard Dawkins

What really happens is that the gene pool becomes filled with genes that influence bodies in such a way that they behave 'as if' they made complex, if unconscious, cost/benefit calculations

Richard Dawkins

What does gene A do? What does gene B do? What does it do in different contexts? What's its importance? We know the answer to that for a very small number of genes, the ones that made themselves evident many years ago.

David Baltimore

Jumping genes are fundamental because they're agents of change. Everybody knows that organisms evolve. What makes them evolve is that their genes are dynamic and in motion. A familiar example is the stripe-y corn - called Indian corn - that you buy in the fall.

Nina Fedoroff

While nobody has identified any gene for religion, there are certainly some candidate genes that may influence human personality and confer a tendency to religious feelings. Some of the genes likely to be involved are those which control levels of different chemicals called neurotransmitters in the brain.

Robert Winston

Genes are not simple triggers. No one is hardwired to commit murder or any other crime. Our actions are always the result of stupendously complex gene-environment interactions, and environment is likely to remain the more important influence by far.

William Landay

Biology will relate every human gene to the genes of other animals and bacteria, to this great chain of being.

Walter Gilbert

Science is a victim of its own reductive metaphors: 'Big Bang,' 'selfish gene' and so on. Richard Dawkins' selfish gene fitted with the Thatcherite politics of the time. It should actually be the 'altruistic gene,' but he'd never have sold as many books with a title like that.

Charles Jencks

Whereas recessive traits require two bad copies of a gene to become noticeable, a dominant trait expresses itself no matter what the other copy does. A benign example of dominance: If you inherit one gene for sticky wet earwax and one gene for dry earwax, the sticky earwax gene wins out every time.

Sam Kean

It once seemed that the most profound feats stemming from DNA-based science would spring from our ability to read and detect genes, which we call the science of genomics. But the real opportunities lie in our ability to write DNA, to synthesize new gene sequences and insert them into organisms, resulting in brand-new biological functions.

Scott Gottlieb

Scientists have found the gene for shyness. They would have found it years ago, but it was hiding behind a couple of other genes.

Jonathan Katz

Genes don't mean necessarily that you have got a certain strand of gene that makes you particularly acceptable as a public official.

Kenneth Langone

The regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Yes, genes are important for understanding our behavior. Incredibly important - after all, they code for every protein pertinent to brain function, endocrinology, etc., etc. But the regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.

Robert Sapolsky

A Quote by Richard Dawkins

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