
The Selfish Gene
1976 · 496 pages
Genes, not organisms, are what selection acts on, and bodies are the machines genes build to carry themselves forward. Dawkins turned that inversion into how biologists think, and gave us the word meme.
★ 6.2

Genes, not organisms, are what selection acts on, and bodies are the machines genes build to carry themselves forward. Dawkins turned that inversion into how biologists think, and gave us the word meme.

Cylinders fall on Horsell Common outside Woking, and the Martians rise out of them with heat-rays and walking machines. Wells turned the British Empire's own conquests around and pointed them at Surrey.

More creatures are born than can survive, they differ, and the useful differences carry forward. Darwin builds that one plain idea into an explanation of every living thing on earth.