Those pieces of DNA that plays this game , causing themselves to be replicated by whatever means, are called genes. The fact that evolution seems to revolve around their well-being rather than our makes them selfish genes.
Paradoxically, one way that scientist confirm the selfish-gene theory is by noticing unselfish behavior in animals. Female worker bees have evolved to labor all their lives to support their mother, the queen, and have no children themselves, because by a genetic quirk their mother's offspring share more DNA with them than their own offspring would. It serves their selfish genes better to behave that way than to go off on their own. (p.52)
Evolution always works for the benefit of selfish replicators. Usually, an animal's survival and reproduction contributes to the same end as the replicator's copying and spreading, but when there's a conflict, the replicator always wins.
Until a few thousand years ago, DNA was the foremost method in the known universe for storing and replicating information. That's why you can't talk about evolution without talking about DNA: evolution is about the replication of information, and almost all the information on the Earth was stored in DNA. (p.62)
Remember that genetic evolution selects for genes, not individuals.
Memes involving danger, food, and sex spread faster than other memes because we are wired to pay more attention to them - we have buttons around those subjects. (p.72)
Remember: quality of life is not what natural selection is about; quality of replication is.
Just as DNA replicates when the organism it generates survives and reproduces, memes replicate when the behavior attracts attention. Pushing our buttons is a great way to attract attention to a meme, so memes that annoy,seduce, enrage, or scare us tend to become widespread. (p.79)
As nice as it might be to imagine that we are evolving toward a better, more civilized, more compassionate world, what we're really evolving toward is a world full of memes and mind viruses that replicate better.
Our brains are still wired to pay attention to, and generate feelings for, situations that were important to us in prehistoric times- and important only in the sense that they helped our genes make as many copies of themselves as possible. The ideas that spread the easiest, and therefore pervade society, are the ones that easily penetrate what old Stone Age brain of ours. (p.84)
The typical female sense of status is based more on attractiveness or popularity than dominance.(p.97)
Evolutionary psychology can help explain why people are hypocritical about sex. While spreading memes that decrease others' promiscuity, such as Adultery is wrong, the hypocrite takes advantage of the very mating opportunities he speaks against. The DNA of people who do that spreads faster than the DNA of honest folk. (p.104)
Genetic evolution wasn't interested in the quality of our lives, only the quantity of our offspring. (p.112)
Asking questions is a Trojan-horse method for infecting people with memes. (p.134)
The very act of asking people a question can cause them to create or reinforce a meme in their minds. Asking enough of the right questions can actually change someone's belief system, and therefore influence the person's behavior. (p.135)
Meme evolution is not designed to benefit the individual. (p.184)
The self-fulfilling strategy-meme of having a purpose to life is one key to why religion works. Now, if you object to swallowing a volume of fairy tales just for the sake of having a more fulfilling existence, I don't really blame you. But don't labor under the assumption that your current picture of the way the world works is accurate either. We all live with a certain amount of delusion and self-deceit; maybe it's just a matter of consciously picking the right set of delusions to point us in the direction we want to go. (p.193)
(Richard Brodie - Virus of the Mind, The revolutionary new science of the Meme and how it can help you)
