Unfortunate Couples

Chapter nine in the Selfish Gene was very similar to chapter eight, and you can tell by the titles alone. Battle of the Generations, as I had explained in my last blog, was basically a competition between children over who would get the most parental investment. Battle of the sexes, on the other hand, talks about a competition between mates, or couples, over who gets to invest the least in their babies. It is in these two chapters where I begin to grasp the true selfishness of the selfish gene theory, and how it is applied much more to animals than to humans. Evidently, this has to do with the topic we had discussed in class a couple of days ago, where I was able to conclude that humans are a unique species on this planet thanks to our free will. According to the selfish gene, parents are more interested in having the most offspring possible than they are in actually taking care of them. Dawkins states, “Each individual wants as many surviving children as possible. The less he or she is obliged to invest in any one of those children, the more children he or she can have. The obvious way to achieve this desirable state of affairs is to induce your sexual partner to invest more than his or her fair share of resources in the child, leaving you free to have other children with other partners.” (Dawkins Pg. 146). This theory doesn’t have such a strong effect on humans as it does on animals. Our free will allows us to think what we wish to think, and do what we wish to do. If a single mother has a baby that she loves, she will probably take care of it instead of worrying about having more children with more men. In fact, many mothers decide to never have kids at all, using all types of contraceptives to avoid this. Although it is an act of selfishness, it is not the same as described in the book. In the case I described, mothers are more worried about themselves, whether they are still studying, working, or simply don’t wish to carry the burden of having a child to look after. Dawkins`s case of selfishness is when animals do certain things, like kill a sibling, or abandon a mate, just to increase their own possibility having the most amount of genes in the gene pool. This is generally the last thing on people`s minds. Nobody actually goes out into the world competing with each other to have the most amount children.