[mtgex]

lukas099 is arguing one of the central points of the book, that altruistic behavior is inherently selfish on a genetic level.

You seem to be arguing completely based on the title of the book, which itself makes clear that the title is provocative but not entirely accurate, which makes me think you have not read it.

[Ygg2]

I am aware of that, and I'm arguing, that is a very reductive model of how humans behave.

E.g. when given choice, humans tend to help each other much more than a selfish gene model would behave, i.e. help people and strangers you have no connection with.

[mtgex]

But all of that is discussed at length in the book we're talking about. To pick out the word "selfish" and say that that's the gene model displays to me that you haven't read the book.

It's difficult to defend a book's premise from someone who hasn't read it and just wants to debate the meaning of the title.

[Ygg2]

Look, I'll be honest. I didn't read a book.

But I don't want to debate its title, instead its reductionist view of people nothing more as vehicles for the immortal DNA.

Anyway here is the part that I was referencing:

    The self-selecting process predicted by the selfish-gene model 
    becomes quickly skewed when correlations in reproduction
     exist which give rise to less than complete mixing of alleles 
    in the gene pool. This may occur through several mechanisms,
     including mate selection and partial geographic isolation.

    The gene-centered view, Dr. Bar-Yam points out, can be  
    applied directly only to populations in which sexual  
    reproduction causes complete allelic mixing. (Such 
    populations are called "panmictic" in biology.)

    Many organisms are part of populations that do not 
    satisfy this condition. Thus, the gene-centered view and 
    the concept of the "selfish gene" does not describe the 
    dynamics of evolution, Dr. Bar-Yam concludes.

Source: http://www.necsi.edu/projects/evolecol/selfishgene.html

[lukas099]

>Look, I'll be honest. I didn't read a book.

>But I don't want to debate its title, instead its reductionist view of people nothing more as vehicles for the immortal DNA.

The problem is that the book does not expound this reductionist view; it is only your conception of the book (likely based on the title) that does.

[Ygg2]

Except it absolutely does:

    We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly
    programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.
    This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene.

[mtgex]

As lukas099 has said, the book does not take the view that you're saying it takes.

Cherry picking quotes out of the context of an entire book can get you to any conclusion you want to come to, especially if you don't know the rest of the contents of the book.

I encourage you to read the book before taking a side that you read an article about.