biological determinism

is the idea that we are gene machines, robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. We can overcome determinism, or at least act like we are overcoming,determinism in order to exercise what by all appearances looks like free will.

we are survival machines robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes' (Dawkins, 1976).' . . . When I say that human beings are just gene machines, one shouldn't put too much emphasis on the word 'just.' There is a very great deal of complication, and indeed beauty in being a gene machine. What it means is that natural selection, Darwinian natural selection, which is the process that has brought all living things to be the way they are, is best seen at the gene level, is best seen as a process of differential survival among genes, and therefore living organisms and their bodies are best seen as machines programmed by the genes to propagate those very same genes. In that sense we are gene machines. But it is not intended to be at all a demeaning or belittling statement.

biological determinism, n.All

biological determinism