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Is the answer really ‘in our genes’?

RICHARD DAWKINS, author of one of the best known texts on human nature, The Selfish Gene, declares we are “machines created by our genes” – that “[w]e are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”  

Less dramatically, and often without an appeal to evolutionary processes, how often have you heard an explanation involving the term “it’s human nature” used to justify or explain greed, competitiveness, aggression, inequality or any other (usually negative) aspect of human behaviour?  

Arguments for – and against – a “fixed” human nature (or the relative importance of “nature” v “nurture”) go back to Aristotle. 

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