Selfish Genes

Richard Dawkins wrote an influential book called 'The Selfish Gene'. It was a cheerless tome that basically said human beings are nothing but the wrapping for selfish genes whose sole aim is to reproduce themselves.

If I've time (ha) I may come back to this but it seemed to me, reading it at the time (way back in the early 80's), that it was a strange idea for a thing like a gene to be selfish.

But perhaps babies - closer to a gene somehow then adults are - are in fact selfish. After all they

a) Scream to be fed rather than waiting for a dinner invite

b) Throw up on you without a by nor leave

c) Piss and shyte in your face and then openly laugh at you in it.

d) Expect a smile to make up for all of above

But then again, it would be daft to expect them to be born and turn immediately into blood donors, raisers of money for the poor and disadvantaged or start campaigning to save Wales. And this is where Dawkins, for me, goes horribly wrong. Babies might be self-interested - but that's different from being selfish. Only adults can be selfish - which is a totally different concept to being self-interested. Going to a party, drinking all the booze, eating all the food and stealing the host's CD's is selfish. But not self-interested. You won't get invited to any more parties.

But screaming to be fed when you can't speak, is just self-interest. Whatever, the "self" is...and whatever "interest" is. But look, that'll have to waut. Someone is screaming for my attention.....and a smile does make up for it.