The Selfish Gene Theory was first popularized by ethnologist Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene (1976).
This book and the theory it espoused became standard doctrine across the entire scientific community. The book became required reading in universities—which is how I found out about this theory. I had to read the book in college.
The Selfish Gene Theory states that individuals of any given species are motivated subconsciously to act in every way to promote, reproduce, and benefit the spread of their own genes.
According to the theory, our genes are the ones directing us to act in certain ways, such as providing for our children and contributing to our communities.
The theory describes the conflicting reproductive strategies of men and women. The author states that men and women are pursuing different agendas when it comes to passing their genes on as much as possible to future generations.
The author describes the male reproductive strategy as scattering one’s wild oats far and wide.
Men have much more sperm to go around, so the author believes that each man will try to impregnate as many females as possible before moving on so he can widen the possibility of his genes taking root in multiple bloodlines.
Females produce far fewer ova and these ova require a much larger investment of biological resources to create them. Gestating, giving birth to, and raising children also requires a significant investment of time and resources on the mother’s part.
The female therefore makes a significant investment in a smaller number of children. The mother concentrates on securing a male counterpart who will share this investment.
The mother also seeks to prevent the male from pursuing his own broad-spectrum strategy in order to get him to invest in her children instead of someone else’s.
This theory has become one of the cornerstones of modern scientific thought.
It’s rare for anyone to carry on any scientific discussion without referring to and questioning the evolutionary and genetic benefit of any given behavior.
There’s only one problem with this theory. It’s nonsense.
If the Selfish Gene was real, we as human beings in general would feel no motivation at all to help anyone who isn’t directly genetically related to us.
The Selfish Gene Theory offers no explanation at all for the major mental health benefits we humans get from helping others.
One of the feel-good brain hormones responsible for our wellbeing is oxytocin.
Scientists call it The Love Hormone because it’s associated with the feelings of deep connection we get during romantic relationships, parent-child bonds, intimate friendships, and other meaningful interactions that affect us at a core level.
We get a massive oxytocin boost when we help other people, including those closest to us. Our love for them makes us want to give to them and improve their lives.
We get the biggest oxytocin boost—and the biggest boost in all our other feel-good brain chemicals—when we help total strangers.
These are people we have no connection with. We have no genetic link to them that would give us a genetic advantage by helping them.
In some cases, these are people we’ve never met and might never even see.
The entire philanthropy and charity industry exists because of this drive of ours to give and help people when we have absolutely no hope that we’ll ever receive anything in return.
We get the biggest oxytocin boost precisely because we won't get anything in return. We get this boost precisely because we understand at a deep level that we don't have to do it. We do it purely because it's a good thing to do and it makes us feel good about ourselves.
We wouldn’t have this drive at all if the Selfish Gene was real. We would have no interest at all in helping others, especially not people unrelated to us.
Our genes would make it impossible for us to help people we aren’t absolutely one-hundred-percent certain are related to us by blood.
Imagine you’re walking down the street and you see a newborn baby wrapped in dirty newspaper tucked into the corner of a filthy alley.
The vast majority of us as normal human beings would stop what we were doing, go over there to find out how we could help, at a bare minimum get the child to safety by handing it over to the Police, and possibly going so far as to taking the child home and maybe even raising it as our own.
Men are just as likely to have this reaction to someone else’s defenseless child as women are.
When I first told my thirteen-year-old daughter about the subject of this blog post, I told her this story and her very first response was, “It’s mine. That baby is mine.”
This would never happen if the Selfish Gene was real.
If the Selfish Gene was real, we would avoid the child.
We might even possibly try to harm or kill the child to stop it from competing with our own genetic children. Never in a million years would we take the baby home and divert resources away from our own children to raise someone else’s child.
My ten-year-old son happened to be listening to this conversation. He very rightly pointed out that, if the Selfish Gene was real, helping others who aren’t related to us would actually be socially frowned upon. We would have socially embedded rules and customs to stop us from giving to other people’s biological progeny.
It would never cross our minds to help some stranger on the other side of the world we will never even lay eyes on.
These behaviors are hard-wired into us for a reason. Our genes aren’t selfish at all—or if they are, we aren’t ruled by them.
We’re ruled by something much bigger and more powerful—something innately unselfish.
We all understand at a core level that the person over there who needs help is actually part of us. We’re all connected.
By helping them, we’re helping each ourselves. We’re helping Project Human Race because we’re all in this together.
No man is an island. Another person’s suffering injures and detracts from me.
This is why we get such a massive boost to our mental health when we help others.
It’s one of the quickest, easiest, cheapest, most accessible solutions to all our mental health problems.
It’s the quickest, easiest, most reliable way to start feeling instantly fantastic. All our own problems seem to disappear when we give our time, resources, and care to those in need.
If anyone reading this is suffering from depression, anxiety, or mental health problems, the chances are high that you’re focusing too much on yourself.
Think of the vast number of people in the world right now who have it so much worse than you do. Some of them could be right down the block from you right at this moment. In fact, they almost certainly are.
Feeling amazing is waiting for you right outside your door. It’s accessible to all of us, at all times, and it’s absolutely free.
You just have to ask yourself, honestly, if you really want to start feeling better—because you can start feeling better whenever you want to.
The ripple effect of our actions affects everyone on the planet. This is the most effective, most immediate way we can make the world a better place.
Whatever you think is wrong with the world, you have the power to change it each and every day with your actions.
We’re all born with this desire built into us at a core level. We all want to make the world a better place.
We wouldn’t have this drive at all if the Selfish Gene was real. We wouldn’t even be aware of it.
This is proof that we’re being guided and governed by something much bigger—something much better—something that makes us happier, brings us together, and gives us a clear path to make the world a better place exactly the way we want to.
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