The Selfish Gene

by Richard Dawkins

universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense.

Often altruism within a group goes with selfishness between groups. This is a basis of trade unionism.

The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones. There is no mystery about this. It had to happen by definition.

The answer is yes. It is easy to show that close relatives—kin—have a greater than average chance of sharing genes. It has long been clear that this must be why altruism by parents towards their young is so common. What

Feminine coyness is in fact very common among animals, and so are prolonged courtship or engagement periods.