Lying For Immortality

Chapter 8 of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene uncovers new thoughts and conclusions on the subject of child to parent lying, the war of generations. The game Dawkins plays with the idea of competition within brothers is extremely alarming and grotesque, even though it all genetically makes sense. The gained survival probability when killing one of the brothers, will make the selfish gene carrier survive over his altruistic brother. It becomes a matter of time before the only gene in the gene pool is the selfish gene, the message that makes the individual kill and survive. As the author describes how the mother bird will feed the hungriest child by the volume of chirping, he states that all children would be fed equally, until they are full, “in the best of all possible worlds, if individuals did not cheat” (130). The higher survival probability when the bird chirps louder to get more food than its siblings, will eventually kill off the birds who do not lie by chirping louder, or who do not have any energy to chirp from being underfed, making the gene which makes the bird chirp louder survive in the gene pool. It is the simple logic which attracts the reader to keep reading the book, not for didactic means but for the sense of observing otherwise complex situations.

As Dawkins concludes his chapter, after making the reader reflect on many approaches to the idea of the “winner” in the battle of generations, we can see how he gradually used his chapter in order to bring his final conclusion into existence. He states that “what will finally emerge is a compromise between the ideal situation desired by the child and that desired by the parent” (139). This is due to the needed balance between the two in order for the gene to survive both as a young individual and as a parent. If the gene works to be a prosperous baby but not as a successful parent the gene looses. It then becomes the obligation of the gene to work as a successful liar in order to survive. If he is able to cheat on his parent as a child sometimes and also catch the child lying as a parent, the survival machine survives giving immortality through lies, the tools for that extra survival probability.

As a final comment, Dawkins tells us that if there “is a human moral to be drawn, it is that we must teach our children altruism, for we cannot expect it to be part of their biological nature” (139). This perfectly fits with his idea of showing the reader a way of looking at people as the battleground of gene trial and error by following the survival of the fittest and show that we must be more aware of our effects on other individuals because our survival nature is truly despicable. What survives (and in this case we are the best example) is what lies and lacks morality, the end (survival) justifies whatever means (lying). I believe that humanity’s evolution depends on our efforts to diminish differences amongst race, sex, financial power, abilities and social classes and stimulate unity not only among humans but of humans with nature and our planet earth. The narcissistic tendencies of the survival of the most egoistic falls flat when the only solution is to unite efforts against years of unfettered financial and ecological abuse. Today anything that happens anywhere is likely to affect life millions of miles away. For example the raising of world wide petroleum prices by the largest petroleum producing nations (the selfish gene theory) affected the price of transportation for basic articles such as wheat that caused strikes in India, Mexico and African nations because of the rising costs of wheat staples such as bread. Many countries stopped industrial production to slow down fuel costs decreasing the profits of petroleum rich nations, so the selfish gene did themselves in. Another personal life example is when I bred canaries, the weaker baby canaries were sometimes “adopted” by the stronger female canaries and survived, while what looked like the stronger babies died because of inadequate mothering from their otherwise healthy mothers. In history the biggest changes come from great bravery from certain individuals (altruistic gene pools) that cost them their lives but changed the lives and dreams of all who witnessed their amazing lives.