Natural selection favors genes that enhance their own survival from "summary" of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins,Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science Richard Dawkins,David Dawkins,RICHARD AUTOR DAWKINS
The genes that survive are not necessarily the ones that produce the most successful organisms. They are the ones that are good at getting themselves passed on to the next generation. The genes that are good at surviving and reproducing are the ones that get passed on, while the genes that are not good at it tend to disappear. This may sound like a trivial point, but it is not trivial at all. It is a very deep and powerful principle that explains much of the nature of life. For example, suppose there is a gene that makes its bearer slightly more likely to survive and reproduce than other individuals in the population. This gene will tend to increase in frequency in the population over time. The more successful the gene is at getting itself passed on, the more copies of it there will be in the population. This is natural selection in action. But what does it mean for a gene to be good at getting itself passed on? One way that a gene can enhance its own survival is by helping its bearer to survive and reproduce. This is the traditional view of natural selection. However, there are other ways that a gene can enhance its own survival. For example, a gene might cause its bearer to sacrifice itself for the good of its relatives, who share copies of the same gene. This might seem like a strange way for a gene to enhance its own survival, but it makes sense when you think about it. If one individual sacrifices itself to save three of its relatives, who each share a copy of the same gene, then the gene will be more likely to get passed on to the next generation. The gene is good at getting itself passed on not because it helps its bearer to survive, but because it helps other individuals who share copies of the same gene to survive. In this way, natural selection can favor genes that enhance their own survival even if it means sacrificing the survival of the individual that bears them. This is a powerful and counterintuitive idea, but it is at the heart of the theory of evolution by natural selection. The genes that survive and reproduce are not necessarily the ones that produce the most successful organisms. They are the ones that are good at getting themselves passed on to the next generation.
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