THE SELFISH GENE BY RICHARD DAWKINS | ANIMATED BOOK SUMMARY

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[alichinogaming]

Two types of people in the comments:

1. Those who agree with this video and like it
2. Those who have read "The Selfish Gene"

[Phenohunt]

Well, you misrepresented this book completely. It's not about genes for selfishness at all. It's about genes being selfish in a competition with each other even in the same organism. This makes me wonder if you even read the book? I've enjoyed your channel but now that I am seeing a review/synopsis of a book I've read and its not accurate, I'm wondering how many of your other reviews are misrepresenting the ideas in the books they are reviewing.

[satanburgercant]

0:58 "this is the main idea of the selfish gene"
No, it's not. Read the book!!!

[PaulTheSkeptic]

I'm not sure you completely understood the book. It's not the behaviors that are selfish, it's the genes themselves. The behaviours might be selfish if it's advantageous but often it's not. If you go around pushing the little guy out of the way to steal food all the time it might protect some of your genes but if you cooperate with the tribe and pool your resources you can propagate more of your genes. Cheating isn't even always advantageous. Females have to be somewhat choosy. If they're promiscuous, they could be left alone with offspring to feed. It's more likely to select for females who want males who will protect them and provide recourses. If a man won't do that he often has less of a chance for his genes to carry on. This was all described in the book. Remember the wolves? The Selfish Gene is the most misunderstood book. You should try it again.

[brianmerion]

This is not representative of the book.

[LCB_Instituto]

Damn, I was already believing this was what the book talks about until starting to read the comments. Guess I'll just have to read it myself then. :p

[fossseseptique]

Missed The Point Productions proudly presents...

[benjaminjaton]

"We have the ability to go against our programming". Nope. You are mistaking. This ability you talk about is programmed.

[FightMediocrity]

Alright, let me make this comment so that I can address the three things that keep coming up...

1. "Your mom isn't being selfish when she sacrifices herself."
There is a huge subtlety between my mom doing that because she is selfish (which I never said) and my mom's genes being selfish and therefore wanting the vehicle they are in to sacrifice herself (which is what I said). I don't know for sure what my mom would do and why she would do it, and frankly I don't really care. It's not relevant to the main point of the video.

2. "Social environment is important, therefore this goes against the selfish gene theory."
That doesn't go against what Dawkins is saying at all. You're going to be "nice" in a social setting, but it has nothing to do with the gene not being selfish (again emphasis on the gene, I really don't care about why you're being nice). Being "nice" actually becomes congruent with the selfishness of the gene. So it goes like this...
"If you steal, we'll chop your head off." If you steal in a society like that, your genes will not reproduce. So the selfish thing for the gene to do is to make sure the vehicle it's in is acting "nice" and not stealing.
A good way to understand this is to examine the "niceness" of dogs today and their evolution from wolves.

3. "It's not always advantageous to cheat."
Yes, you're right. For the sake of time, this was oversimplified.

[manofsteal]

I do not think he has gone far from the book ideas, he just put it as simple as possible,

here is a quote from the book :
". We shall continue to treat the individual as a selfish machine,
programmed to do whatever is best for its genes as a whole. This is the
language of convenience. At the end of the chapter we return to the
language of single genes"

[arockstar]

I am pretty sure you did not read the book. The "Selfish" gene is not a gene that makes people selfish. Genes are "selfish" in that they drive their hosts (people) to subvert themselves to perpetuate the gene. The book attempts to explain human altruism with Evolutionary Theory. One of the chapters in the book is called "Nice Guys Finish First".

[salaryman]

Phew I was relieved to see a bunch of comments pointing out that his review is not as accurate as I was on the same boat.

[Sifar_Secure]

Did you even read the book? This animation seems to be based on the book's reputation, promulgated by people who have read only the title and imagine what it's about.

[TheFearmoths]

I believe selfishness (and all social conditioning) is down to social conditioning, nurture rather than nature.

[raju]

so many things are wrong with you examples

[thenameless]

The problem with the selfish gene is that the people around the selfish gene will not get there support. Unity, love and respect will always trump the selfish.

[Zipjin]

At the age of anthropocene, we are no longer only facing lions, but many more man-made crisis. Our righteousness is itself the result of evolution, as our genes have embraced quality of life in addition to survival. True selfishness must contain altruism. It is cooperation that brings collective good, even between human and non-human. Strengthening social harmony and world peace, our instinctive morality helps us all to last longer. This certainly does not violate the selfish gene.

[Pedro-dscq]

So many angry reactions. He didnt give altruistic examples but his explanation is correct. The gene is selfish not the behavior. He said that. I cant see what people are complaining about

[주혜진-ll]

I doubt if the producer of this video has read the book... 😕

[FliskerX]

I was like "Oh ... this doesn't sound right..." throughout most of the vid, but I love the answer on the children question. That's just pure gold.