The Gene-Centered View of Evolution

Natural selection can explain almost everything about the biological world including altruistic behavior, a point that we might touch on again later. I want to read out a few reactions that different people have had to the gene-centered view of evolution and then I want to get your reaction in terms of the dismay of the person. In 1994 Randolph Nessie said, quote, the discovery that tendencies to altruism shaped by benefits to genes is one of the most disturbing in the history of science. A foreign publisher of my first book confessed that he could not sleep for three nights after reading it so troubled was he by what he saw as this cold, bleak message. Others have asked me how I can bear to