The genome that we decipher in this generation is but a snapshot of an ever-changing document. There is no definitive edition. - Matt Ridley

The evolutionary implication is that we are descended from a common ancestor with flies which used the same way of defining the pattern of the embryo more than 530 million years ago, and that the mechanism was so good that all this dead creature’s descendants have hung on to it.

But as we shall see, the appearance is misleading. Animal altruism is a myth. Even in the most spectacular cases of selflessness it turns out that animals are serving the selfies interests of their own genes—if sometimes being careless with their bodies.

people are attracted to people of high reproductive and genetic potential — the healthy, the fit, and the powerful.