"Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines."

For years we have been taught science. What chemicals are, what they're made up of, the periodic table, evolution, etc. This bring up the debate of science vs. religion. Some say it was God who created the universe, while others ridiculize this idea and say it was nothing greater than a new mixture of molecules. Truthfully, I believe we'll never know, because we weren't there and nobody will be able to come back from the dead and confirm whether God exists or not. So we'll just keep doubting, never knowing what is actually true. With such a scientific book, it is evident that Dawkins supports the scientific theory over the religious one. This is specially obvious when he discusses errors made in history and chooses out of all examples to say "I suppose the scholars of the Septuagint could at least be said to have started something big when they mistranslated the Hebrew word for 'young woman' into the Greek word for 'virgin', coming up with the prophecy: 'Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son...'" (p.16) By doing so, he is attacking religion in a way which could be called subtle, as he can simply deny it when he is criticized and say it was an incorrect inference made by the reader.

Never had I realized that everything we know - all humans, other animals, and plants - came from the same molecule. Never until now, that is; thanks to The Selfish Gene. Richard Dawkins explains that we were created by accident, since the replicator molecule wasn't even meant to be formed. But it was. And so it began replicating until errors in replication caused the existence of hundreds of different replicas. This is what allowed animals and plants to be created. Before, there was only one type of molecule. But now since there were tons of different ones, it became a competition: survival of the fittest.

Never before had replicas had to fight to survive. However, with the newly-formed diversity, they were forced to create various new defense devices to outsmart others, and survive. This is the reason why they created what today is known as the cell wall, which in the end allowed life to appear on earth, and created us, their "survival machines."