A Quote by Richard Dawkins

Selfish genes actually explain altruistic individuals, and to me that's crystal-clear.

Richard Dawkins

Quote Topics

Actually Altruistic Clear Crystal Explain Genes Individuals Me Selfish Selfish Gene

Quote Author

Richard Dawkins
English - Scientist
Born: March 26, 1941

Any altruistic system is inherently unstable, because it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it.

Richard Dawkins

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

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

Natural selection involves no plan, no goal, and no direction — just genes increasing and decreasing in frequency depending on whether individuals with those genes have, relative to other individuals, greater or lesser reproductive success.

Randolph M. Nesse

The fact that something is actually understandable and relatable doesn't mean that it's unsophisticated or banal. It just means that it's crystal-clear. And if you can't explain it, that doesn't necessarily mean it's so brilliant that ordinary mortals can't fathom it. It might just mean that it makes no sense.

Bjarke Ingels

It is extremely important that individuals in the state of California do not own assault weapons. I mean that is just so crystal clear, there is no debate, no discussion.

Leland Yee

Crystal-clear thinking is one of the things we look for - not a fancy slide pitch, but crystal-clear thinking.

Douglas Leone

The intelligent altruists, though less altruistic than unintelligent altruists, will be fitter than both unintelligent altruists and selfish individuals.

Herbert Simon

The only thing that was sharper and that scarred more was the selfish actions of those you loved when they made it crystal clear that they cared more for themselves than they did for you. Especially when it was someone you trusted to always put you first.

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever.

Richard Dawkins

Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.

E. O. Wilson

How can someone like Alain Juppé still claim I haven't condemned the Paris and Brussels attacks, when I actually have. What I am saying is crystal clear.

Tariq Ramadan

In a crystal we have clear evidence of the existence of a formative life principle, and though we cannot understand the life of a crystal, it is nonetheless a living being

Nikola Tesla

We're selfish to some degree, that's not a criticism and it doesn't mean that we are all narcissists. But in any situation our minds naturally evolve to what's in it for me? How does this affect me? Can this benefit me? Can this harm me? Then we might move on from that and have a more altruistic point of view about things but that's almost always our initial response.