Robert Karl Stonjek  wrote:

> Likewise, thinking about the gene as selfish (in the sense of Dawkins in "A
> Selfish Gene") helps to anticipate the nature of genetic
evolution.  It does
> not, as Dawkins points out, mean that the gene is selfish.  But we seem to
> forget this when on the scale of animal - individual animals don't figure
> out strategies to perpetuate their genes.  They don't benefit from having
> their genes in the wombs of any or all the females.  Birds don't sit on a
> rocking chair on their veranda and reminisce as the watch their
> grandchildren flutter about.

"The only strategists in evolution are evolutionary biologists." Michael
Ghiselin, _The economy of nature and the evolution of sex_, 1974.
-- 
John Wilkins
[I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "...interesting
 hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? ...
must have been made to have me in it." Douglas Adams, Salmon of Doubt
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