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Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase “the selfish gene” with his best-selling book of the same name. “Selfish”, however, was perhaps an unfortunate word choice because genes lack their own will and can actually drive altruistic behavior.
Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase "the selfish gene" with his best-selling book of the same name. "Selfish", however, was perhaps an unfortunate word choice because genes lack their own will and can actually drive altruistic behavior. I explain how in our latest Instant Egghead video:
Correction (5/15/14): This video erroneously states that honeybee workers share 75 percent of their genetic information. Because the queen bee mates with multiple drones, however, their genetic relatedness is actually 25 to 40 percent.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Eric R. Olson
Eric is multimedia journalist and producer who specializes in science and natural history. His work has appeared on the websites of Scientific American, Nature, Nature Medicine, Popular Science, Slate and The New York Times among many others. He is a former video producer & editor for Scientific American.
Are Genes Really Selfish? [Video]Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase “the selfish gene” with his best-selling book of the same name. “Selfish”, however, was perhaps an unfortunate word choice because genes lack their own will and can actually drive altruistic behavior.
