The Selfish Gene

Early “survival machines” (40) consisted of basic barriers protecting the replicators from physical or chemical destruction. Free-floating molecules fed the production of these machines:

This easy life came to an end when the organic food in the soup, which had been slowly built up under the energetic influence of centuries of sunlight, was all used up. A major branch of survival machines, now called plants, started to use sunlight directly themselves to build up complex molecules from simple ones, re-enacting at much higher speed the synthetic processes of the original soup. Another branch, now known as animals, 'discovered' how to exploit the chemical labours of the plants, either by eating them, or by eating other animals. Both main branches of survival machines evolved more and more ingenious tricks to increase their efficiency in their various ways of life, and new ways of life were continually being opened up. (40).

The arms race of evolution produced all the life forms we know today, including those living in air, water, land, or other organisms. Plant and animal bodies act as “colonies” of cells, each containing genes. Dawkins inverts this to view bodies as colonies of genes, inhabiting cells. Competition has resulted in cooperation among genes, such that a body operates as a single unit, despite consisting of different components: