When the UK’s Royal Society conducted a poll on “the most inspiring science books of all time” in 2017, The Selfish Gene seized the top ranking, even ahead of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

Many respondents called The Selfish Gene, by Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, a masterpiece. They commented how the book had “changed their perspective of the world and the way they were trained to see science.”

So what is Dawkins’ argument? Life on earth is driven by the arsenal of genes that act to perpetuate themselves across time. Bodies and brains are effectively robots, fulfilling the urges and commands of genes.

To demonstrate the power of our “selfish genes” to influence behavior, Dawkins highlights shocking acts of infanticide in the animal world: a lion kills the cubs of a mate in order to start his own family; a just hatched chick destroys the other eggs in a nest to claim its parents’ sole attention.

Yet amid such acts are daring displays of altruism: mothers risk their lives to draw a predator away from their babies, or birds issue a warning call to siblings when an enemy approaches.

The gene’s endless struggle for survival can spark acts of ruthless self-protection and shielding of others.

Each organism’s DNA is a unique codex for building their bio-structure, copied across every cell. “It is as though, in every room of a gigantic building, there was a bookcase containing the architect’s plan for the entire building” Dawkins says.

Every human has 46 specially written “volumes,” or chromosomes, in his or her bookcase that set out an individualized design, repeated only across identical twins. Each page can be viewed as a gene.

Only genes can leap, intact, from parent to child. The only alternative for individuals bent on propagating their entire DNA blueprints into the future would be cloning.

But cloning would prevent the mutations that propel evolution and genetic advances. It would prevent genes from doing their work, which is to fight for supremacy.