Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

The title of this chapter is supposed to sound like the sort of question children ask: "Why are people this way or that way?" But Dawkins wants to consider something even more basic. Why are people in existence at all? The author thinks that intelligent life must be life that asks where it came from. Also, he believes that it took three thousand million years and a man named Charles Darwin to come up with the correct answer to this question. Darwin is, of course, the thinker behind the concept of evolution, which is accepted by most scientists today.

Doubt about evolution, according to Dawkins, who is writing in 1976, is rare. However, he admits, philosophy classes and humanities don't often make use of the science of evolution. He is writing this book to examine the biology of selfishness and altruism, the...