Obviously, the vast majority of evolutionary change is invisible to direct eye-witness observation. Most of it happened before we were born, and in any case, it is usually too slow to be seen during an individual’s lifetime.
The word replicator is purposely defined in a general way, so that it does not even have to refer to DNA.
Why don’t religious people talk like that when in the presence of the dying?
In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.
I am, indeed, quite sympathetic towards the idea that human culture provides a new milieu in which an entirely different kind of replicator selection can go on.
A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents.
The notion that religion is a proper field, in which one might claim expertise, is one that should not go unquestioned.
Dan Dennett reminds us that the common cold is universal to all human peoples in much the same way as religion is, yet we would not want to suggest that colds benefit us.
From the viewpoint of this book an animal artefact, like any other phenotypic product whose variation is influenced by a gene, can be regarded as a phenotypic tool by which that gene could potentially lever itself into the next generation.
I am not sure what to make of my admittedly anecdotal observation that many of those who most ardently oppose the taking of embryonic life also seem to be more than usually enthusiastic about taking adult life.
What is remarkable is the polar opposition between the religiosity of the American public at large and the atheism of the intellectual elite.54.
Even without physical abduction, isn’t it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought about?
Real science can be hard but, like classical literature or playing the violin, worth the struggle.
In principle, we may consider any portion of chromosome as a potential candidate for the title of replicator.
Root of All Evil?
The mystic is content to bask in the wonder and revel in a mystery that we were not ‘meant’ to understand. The scientist feels the same wonder but is restless, not content; recognizes the mystery as profound, then adds, ‘But we’re working on it.
Natural selection may usually be safely regarded as the differential survival of replicators relative to their alleles.
The other thing I cannot help remarking upon is the overweening confidence with which the religions assert minute details for which they neither have, nor could have, any evidence. Perhaps it is the very fact that there is no evidence to support theological opinions, either way, that fosters the characteristic draconian hostility towards those of slightly different opinion, especially, as it happens, in the very field of Trinitarianism.
We are fundamentally interested in natural selection, therefore in the differential survival of replicating entities such as genes. Genes are favoured or disfavoured relative to their alleles as a consequence of their phenotypic effects upon the world. Some of these phenotypic effects may be incidental consequences of others, and have no bearing on the survival chances, one way or the other, of the genes concerned.
Social habits that are universal among all peoples, such as laughing, smiling, weeping, religion, and a statistical tendency to avoid incest, are likely to have been present in our common ancestors too.