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What I Learned About Genes and Life From Reading The Selfish Gene
I’ve always been a fan of Charlie Munger’s advice to learn the big ideas in all the main disciplines. As someone who’s passionate about reading and investing, I’ve found that branching out of finance and diving into biology or physics can offer fresh perspectives, even on everyday decisions. One book that kept coming up in my reading lists was The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I decided to take the plunge.
Now, I’ll be honest with you: this book is not a breezy Sunday afternoon read. It’s packed with scientific concepts that can be a bit heavy, but I stuck with it because I kept hearing it was a classic for understanding human behavior — and even investing, believe it or not. Dawkins talks about genes as if they are the ultimate selfish operators, and that perspective shifted how I think about evolution, life, and even decision-making.
If you’re curious about why we do what we do — or why animals act the way they do — then you’ll want to stick around. Let me take you through my key takeaways from The Selfish Gene and how this gene-centric view of life blew my mind.
Genes: The Real Masterminds Behind Everything?
The central idea in Dawkins’ book is that genes are the fundamental unit of selection in evolution. This goes…
