The Altruistic Gene
Do we have altruistic and selfish genes?
DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. — Richard Dawkins
According to this quote, there’s no such thing as a selfish gene or an altruistic gene. Genes don’t care one way or the other whether we live or die.
The same Richard Dawkins wrote a best-seller entitled “The Selfish Gene”. Within the title of his book, he personifies the gene giving it personhood and personality. He turns the gene into some sort of psyche or non-local consciousness. He imbues it with a desire to survive and to be selfish.
Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.
We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment. ― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
Can a gene be selfish? Does a gene have a motivational imperative to survive and replicate into the future? Are our selfish genes up to something as he claims? Do our selfish genes have designs and plans? Do our genes make music? Can molecules be selfish? Since according to Richard Dawkins, we have selfish genes, does that mean that we also have helping genes or altruistic genes? Everything has its opposite after all.
Does the title of Dawkins’ book have any foundation in reality, or is it nothing but science fiction?
The theory of evolution and the evolutionary perspective permeate the whole of science; but, do they have any basis in reality or are they simply a fictional story?
Do you sense the inconsistency within these quotes?
In order for genes to be selfish, they have to know and care!
His work is sloppy, incoherent, inconsistent, and inconstant.
So, which is it? Are the genes selfish, or do the genes neither know nor care what’s going on? It can’t be both. If the one is true, then the other is false.
It’s my contention that the theory of evolution is a fictional story that they made up out of thin air. My observation or experience is that everything Richard Dawkins writes contains within it the seeds of its own destruction or the seeds of its own falsification. The same reality applies to these particular quotes.
If we are simply dancing to our DNA as Dawkins claims and our DNA is selfish, then why should we bother to try to teach generosity and altruism to our children? Aren’t we already pre-programmed to be selfish and have no other choice in the matter? Aren’t we just robots and survival machines for our genes as he claims?
You see, he is inconsistent and contradictory here! There’s no coherence to his arguments. Either we are robots, or we are individual psyches capable of teaching our children new tricks that have never been learned before. Which is it?
“Let us understand”, “let us try to upset their designs”, “let us aspire to do something that no other species has done before”. Who is this “us” that he keeps talking about? It isn’t our genes! According to Dawkins, it’s our genes that we are trying to overcome. So, who is this “us” that’s trying to overcome its selfish genes?
“We are born selfish”. “We are survival machines”. Who’s this “we”?
This “us” and “we” are Human Psyches. Human Psyches are the things that are trying to overcome their selfish genes – mind over matter. We also KNOW that it is Someone Psyche or Someone Intelligent who designed and created the proteins and their matching genes in the first place, because functional genes and proteins have never been observed spontaneously generating out of thin air.
By carefully analyzing the theory of evolution, it quickly becomes obvious and apparent that it is nothing but a fictional story that they made up out of thin air as they went along. The internal contradictions prove that it is so. In one book, he is talking about DNA that neither knows nor cares; and, in another book he is talking about selfish genes that have to know and care or they wouldn’t be selfish to begin with. In one book, the genes are dead and inert; and, in the other book the genes are dynamic and alive. So, which is it? Which one is the truth, and which one is the falsehood? They can’t both be true because they are mutually exclusive. The theory of evolution is riddled with such inconsistencies all throughout the whole of it. Can you sense the significance of these observations?
The theory of evolution has some serious holes in it. Notice that the theory of evolution is in dispute, but the existence of the genes is not. The scientific community should abandon the theory of evolution and go with the genes instead, because the genes have been experienced and observed. Science is supposed to be about observation and experience, not wishful thinking and philosophical speculation.
Dawkins’ “truths” are contradictory, inconsistent, and self-defeating. Do we even have selfish genes; or, is that a fictional story too? What do you think? It doesn’t matter what I think. What truly matters to you is what you choose to think and believe! That’s the thing that has an impact on your life and destiny.
Now, I’ll tell you what I think.
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The Evolutionary Perspective
Myers, D. G. (2010). Social Psychology (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
In his chapter about Helping Others, Myers has the obligatory section dedicated to the evolutionary perspective and evolutionary psychology. The implication is that we have helping genes or altruistic genes that are motivated to preserve and protect our kin. Do we have altruistic genes interested in preserving our kin, or is that claim nothing but science fiction? We either do or don’t, so which is it?
After having falsified and debunked the Theory of Evolution thousands of times, I no longer feel generous, kind, and altruistic towards such a section within my science books because I know why it’s false and I know that they are trying to deceive us. My attack is swift and decisive. I don’t have an altruistic gene in my body where the theory of evolution is concerned.
Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, Classical Physics, Behaviorism, Determinism, Physical Reductionism, Scientism, Atheism, and the Theory of Evolution are based exclusively on entropy. They all reduce to entropy. Evolution of any type is based upon entropy. Evolution IS entropy. Entropy is death and extinction.
There’s no way in the universe that entropy or death is going to lend a helping hand or show an altruistic streak. We don’t have an altruistic gene any more than we have a selfish gene.
I’m not generous and kind to the theory of evolution because it’s a fictional story, and not a very good one at that. The whole thing is stupid and illogical.
Let’s think about it logically for once because nobody else does.
A genome is both hardware and software. A genome is a computer. Does your computer have a selfish gene? Does your computer have an altruistic gene? Does your computer do kinship selection? Do we have selfish computers and altruistic computers? Of course not. Your computer is based upon physical matter or entropy; and, so is your genome. Entropy is death. Entropy doesn’t have emotions. Entropy doesn’t have selfish genes nor altruistic genes. Entropy has no motivational imperative to survive. Entropy doesn’t show favoritism. Entropy doesn’t care which one is the fittest. Entropy doesn’t do selection in any active sense. The consequences of Natural Selection are death and extinction. When you get selected against, you die. Natural selection doesn’t touch our genes.
Your computer and your genome don’t care about you one way or the other. They have no motivations, desires, or feelings. They have no psychic imperative or personal motivation to survive. Instead, entropy eventually does them in, and they have no feelings about their death or extinction one way or the other. This is a genome or a computer that we are talking about, and not a human being or a human psyche. Your genome doesn’t have any selfish genes, nor does it have any altruistic genes either. Selfishness and altruism are a function and a product of the Human Psyche, and not our genes. Genes, computers, and physical matter are based upon entropy or physical matter. Entropy or evolution doesn’t care whether you live or die.
Did your computer spontaneously generate out of thin air, or was your computer designed, created, engineered, and manufactured by Someone Psyche? Obviously, Someone Intelligent made your computer. Well, the same exact truth and reality applies to your genome. Your genome is God’s Signature. Genomes don’t just spontaneously generate out of thin air. Genomes are designed, programmed, engineered, field-tested, fine-tuned, created, manufactured, and deployed. The same reality applies to your computer.
Your genome is both hardware and software – a computer. Your genome and your computer don’t have feelings, motivations, nor desires. They don’t have selfish genes nor altruistic genes. Your genome and your computer don’t do kinship selection or kinship favoritism. They are based upon entropy or physical matter; and, entropy cannot design and create and effectively do anything. Entropy is death and extinction. Natural selection or survival of the fittest eventually leads to death and extinction. Random mutations are entropy. Evolution is death and extinction. Evolution is entropy.
Saying that the theory of evolution is true doesn’t make it true. Saying that most scientists believe in evolution doesn’t make the theory of evolution true either. Most scientists are wrong. Evolution or entropy cannot design and create anything. The theory of evolution is Creation by Evolution or Creation by Entropy. Saying that natural selection or random mutations have been observed doesn’t make Creation by Entropy or the Theory of Evolution true. Random mutations are entropy, and entropy cannot design and create anything whatsoever.
Here among all of their favorite fictions, we finally have the truth. Evolution or entropy cannot design and create; and, evolution or entropy doesn’t care whether you live or die. There it is in black and white.
One of the most useful and truthful scientific discoveries that I encountered is a concept called Genetic Entropy by John Sanford.
Sanford, J. (2014). Genetic Entropy (4th ed.). Cornell University: FMS Foundation.
This book uses science and common-sense logic to falsify the theory of evolution. This book teaches that entropy cannot design and create; and, physical matter including our genome is based upon entropy. Genomes don’t create themselves because they can’t. They are prevented from doing so by entropy.
It should have been called The Genetic Perspective and not the evolutionary perspective. The genes are real and true – the theory of evolution is not. The theory of evolution is a fictional ad hoc just-so story that they made up out of thin air after-the-fact. The theory of evolution doesn’t exist as any kind of physical entity, physical object, or person; but, our genes have been experienced and observed. The one truly exists; and, the other one has been falsified. The theory of evolution is in dispute. The genes are not. It should have been called the Genetic Perspective and not the evolutionary perspective.
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Evolutionary Psychology
Let’s critique the following quote about evolutionary psychology. I learn best through comparison and contrast.
Kin Selection: The idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one’s close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes.
Evolutionary Psychology
Another explanation of helping comes from evolutionary theory. Evolutionary psychology contends that life’s essence is gene survival. Our genes drive us in adaptive ways that have maximized their chance of survival. When our ancestors died, their genes lived on, predisposing us to behave in ways that will spread them into the future.
As suggested by the title of Richard Dawkins’s (1976) popular book The Selfish Gene, evolutionary psychology offers a humbling human image — one that psychologist Donald Campbell called a biological reaffirmation of a deep, self-serving “original sin.” Genes that predispose individuals to self-sacrifice in the interests of strangers’ welfare would not survive in the evolutionary competition.
Genetic selfishness should, however, predispose us toward two specific types of selfless or even self-sacrificial helping: kin protection and reciprocity.
KIN PROTECTION
Our genes dispose us to care for relatives. Thus, one form of self-sacrifice that would increase gene survival is devotion to one’s children. Compared with neglectful parents, parents who put their children’s welfare ahead of their own are more likely to pass their genes on. As evolutionary psychologist David Barash wrote, “Genes help themselves by being nice to themselves, even if they are enclosed in different bodies.” Genetic egoism (at the biological level) fosters parental altruism (at the psychological level). Although evolution favors self-sacrifice for one’s children, children have less at stake in the survival of their parents’ genes.
Thus, according to the theory, parents will generally be more devoted to their children than their children are to them. Other relatives share genes in proportion to their biological closeness. You share one-half your genes with your brothers and sisters, one-eighth with your cousins.
Kin selection — favoritism toward those who share our genes — led the evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane to jest that although he would not give up his life for his brother, he would sacrifice himself for three brothers — or for nine cousins. Haldane would not have been surprised that genetic relatedness predicts helping and that genetically identical twins are noticeably more mutually supportive than fraternal twins. In one laboratory game experiment, identical twins were half again as likely as fraternal twins to cooperate with their twin for a shared gain when playing for money.
The point is not that we calculate genetic relatedness before helping but that nature (as well as culture) programs us to care about close relatives.
Some evolutionary psychologists note that kin selection predisposes ethnic ingroup favoritism — the root of countless historical and contemporary conflicts. E. O. Wilson noted that kin selection is “the enemy of civilization. If human beings are to a large extent guided . . . to favor their own relatives and tribe, only a limited amount of global harmony is possible”. (Social Psychology, pp. 452-453.)
Is any of this true, or is it all science fiction?
I don’t see any truth within it. It all seems to be correlational. Correlation is NOT causation!
Selection is some type of choice. How does evolution make choices? It can’t. Evolution isn’t alive. There’s no psyche or intelligence there within evolution. Evolution or entropy can’t make choices. Evolution or entropy can’t do selection!
How does a gene know that those other genes are its close relatives? Is there some kind of telepathic connection between the genes letting them know that they are related to each other? Is there some kind of psyche within a gene making it altruistic towards its close relatives and desirous for their survival? If there is, then we have just falsified Materialism, Naturalism, and the Theory of Evolution. The very existence of selfish genes and altruistic genes would falsify the Major Premises of Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, and Atheism which claim that psychic imperatives or motivational imperatives do not exist. The theory of evolution is self-defeating because the genes don’t care one way or the other whether we survive, or they survive. The genes have no way of knowing which genes are related to them and which genes are not.
Our genes don’t drive us! Driving implies some sort of intelligence or psyche. Our genes don’t predispose us to do anything. Predisposition implies some sort of psyche or intelligence with foresight and purpose and goals in mind. Disposition implies some sort of preference or choice. Genes or physical matter can’t make choices. If your genes do in fact have intelligence or psyche, then we have once again falsified Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, and Atheism. Materialism, Naturalism, and Darwinism are self-defeating. They have to give these things psyche or intelligence; or, they can’t do anything. Yet, if they give Evolution and Naturalism psyche, intelligence, teleology, motivational imperatives, and purpose, then they automatically falsify Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, and Atheism.
The theory of evolution and natural selection do not work as advertised. Heroism and self-sacrifice are chosen into existence by the Human Psyche and NOT the genes. We aren’t driven by our genes. Our physical body is driven by the Human Psyche.
Our genes do NOT predispose us to care for relatives. Our genes have no way of knowing who our relatives are. What in reality predisposes us to care for our relatives? It’s the very fact that our parents protected us, and we were raised with our siblings, which predisposes us to care for them. It’s a cultural thing, and not a genetic thing. Proximity is necessary for caring. We Human Psyches don’t care about the things that we don’t know about. Caring is a function of the Human Psyche and not our genes. Self-sacrifice produces love. We love the people most for whom we sacrifice the most. We care about our friends and the people that we work with because we spend time with them. It has nothing to do with our genes!
“Genes help themselves by being nice to themselves.” They personify the genes – turn them into little people. It’s a story. It’s fiction! He’s telling us that the genes are Who’s living in Whoville. If the genes are in fact little people or little psyches, then we have in fact falsified the Major Premises of Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, and Atheism which claim that psyche or non-local consciousness does not exist. If there really are selfish genes and altruistic genes, then their very existence falsifies Materialism, Naturalism, and the Theory of Evolution which claim that our genes don’t have intelligence or psyche and don’t care whether we live or die. Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, and their derivatives are self-defeating or self-falsifying. These falsified philosophies are internally incoherent. They are nothing but fictional stories, and bad ones at that.
It’s all correlational! We are mutually supportive of the people that we live with and work with due to proximity. It has nothing to do with our genes! Identical twins separated from birth have done NO mutual support because they never made contact with each other. Caring (and hating) is due to proximity and NOT our genes. The genes have no way of knowing who their relatives are; but, Human Psyches certainly do.
Our genes can’t guide us. They aren’t Prophets and Gods! Our genes can’t do selection. Selection of any kind involves choice; and, the genes or physical matter can’t do choice. Choice or selection has nothing to do with our genes. Our genes don’t do our thinking and choosing for us! Evolution is entropy. Evolution and genes don’t make choices for Human Psyches. Evolution or entropy cannot do choice. Physical matter or entropy cannot do choice. Choices are chosen into existence by the Human Psyche.
Nature and culture influence us, for sure; but, they do not and cannot program our choices into us. Choice is a function of the Human Psyche, and our genes and society do not choose our beliefs and desires for us. Some people choose to hate their close relatives the most. It has nothing to do with our genes and everything to do with choice and proximity. If kin selection were true, then Cain would never have killed Abel. If the theory of evolution were true, then there would be no homosexuality on this planet. Survival of the fittest would have seen to their extinction.
Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, and Survival of the Fittest are the root of countless historical and contemporary conflicts. Fascism and Nazism were based upon Darwinism or Survival of the Fittest. Communism is based upon Militaristic Atheism or Enforced Atheism. In V for Vendetta, one of the characters asked why the Fascists hate the homosexuals so much that they are willing to exterminate them. It’s because the homosexuals falsify Darwinism, Naturalism, Survival of the Fittest, and the Theory of Evolution. Their very existence falsifies the very foundation of Fascism or Darwinism.
Again, empathy or altruism comes down to proximity and the Human Psyche. It has nothing to do with our genes! Our genes don’t care one way or the other if we survive or die. It’s the Human Psyche who is worrying about whether it is going to survive or die – not our genes. Empathy and altruism are best explained by Psyche, Syntropy, and Quantum Non-Local Consciousness because physical matter and genes cannot do choice, empathy, altruism, or love.
Mark My Words
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Source Material
Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene.
Myers, D. G. (2010). Social Psychology (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
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