It's all in the genes

"Think about having a child, and ask who — or rather, what — benefits from reproduction? It’s the genes. As modern biologists recognize, babies are our genes’ way of projecting themselves into the future.

Unlike the cases of parasites or pathogens, when genes manipulate 'their' bodies, the situation seems less dire, if only because instead of foreign occupation it’s our

genes, our selves. But those presumably personal genes aren’t any more hesitant about manipulating our bodies, and by extension our actions, than is a parasitic fly hijacking a honeybee.

Here, then, is heresy: maybe there is no one in charge — no independent, self-serving, order-issuing homunculus."

--From a fascinating, if somewhat troubling, article, "Who’s in Charge Inside Your Head?" (New York Times) by David P. Barash, an evolutionary biologist and professor of psychology at the University of Washington

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