That Which Survives

My analogy of survival machine

"Inmortal coils", chapter two of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene states every living organism, from humans to viruses, is a survival machine that hosts the same kind of replicator as every other organism: DNA. "DNA can be regarded as a set of instructions for how to make a body," (page 22) is Dawkins' definition of DNA, but the importance of these replicators is also explained because it is where genes reside. "Genes are at least partly responsible for their own survival in the future, because their survival depends on the efficiency of the bodies in which they live and which they help build," explains Dawkins. I recall my Biology class with Ms. Blesgraeft in which she explained Darwin's survival of the fittest does not state the fittest are the strongest or those superiors to the rest, but rather the one that mostly passes its genes. It is each survival machine that has the duty of making its genes survive even when it dies and they way of accomplishing it is with sexual reproduction. My parents have successfully made their genes survive by passing them on to me, but if I want them to survive I must reproduce. Dawkins explains crossing over as the process of swapping bits of chromosome (alleles) in the formation of an offspring. He states there are dominant and recessive alleles that can or can not be active in the offspring. These could live for a million years, but their survival is very difficult. 

Genes compete with their alleles for their survival and ultimately in regards to genes, altruism is bad and selfishness good. Dawkins expands on this idea saying any gene that that increases its survival chances, tends to survive. I can say that my father's genes that affect growth definitely were altruistic in my offspring. While my dad measures 1.87 meters, my mom measures 1.60 meters and I 1.85 meters. The height affecting genes from my father are surviving instead of my mom's. Dawkins writes "The gene is the basic unit of selfishness," (page 36) and in my case I can not deny it. Being the unit that make up life, genes are the first form of selfishness.