The essential quality that an entity needs, if it is to become an effective gene vehicle, is this. It must have an impartial exit channel into the future, for all the genes inside it. This is true of an individual wolf. The channel is the thin stream of sperms, or eggs, which it manufactures by meiosis. It is not true of the pack of wolves. Genes have something to gain from selfishly promoting the welfare of their own individual bodies, at the expense of other genes in the wolf pack. A bee-hive, when it swarms, appears to reproduce by broad-fronted budding, like a wolf pack. But if we look more carefully we find that, as far as the genes are concerned, their destiny is largely shared. The future of the genes in the swarm is, at least to a large extent, lodged in the ovaries of one queen. This is why–it is just another way of expressing the message of earlier chapters–the bee colony looks and behaves like a truly integrated single vehicle. . Richard Dawkins
Some Similar Quotes
  1. It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. - Unknown

  2. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can. - Nicholas Sparks

  3. The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person. - Chuck Palahniuk

  4. Where there is love there is life. - Mahatma Gandhi

  5. It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted.... - Henry Rollins

More Quotes By Richard Dawkins
  1. Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.

  2. Be happy, but never satisfied.

  3. You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it...

  4. Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

  5. Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.

Related Topics