Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

Dawkins believes people mistakenly want to think of parental care as something different than other evolutionary behaviors. He points out that there is a big difference between making new gene machines and taking care of existing one. Caring for young has a very different meaning for different animals. The author says from a gene's point of view you are just as related to a baby brother as your own baby son, but human mammals tend to favor the son, so really, if his theory is correct, brothers ought to protect one another as powerfully as they do their own offspring.

The confusion comes in part, he says, because a person named Wynne-Edwards teaches that groups of animals evolved for the good of the group as a whole. He believes they could intentionally reduce their own birth rates for the good of...