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• much
• This brings me to the first point I want to make about what this book is not. I am not advocating a morality based on evolution.
• the second thing this book is not: it is not an advocacy of one position or another in the nature/nurture controversy. Naturally I have an opinion on this, but I am not going to express it, except insofar as it is implicit in the view of culture that I shall present in the final chapter.
• The third thing this book is not is a descriptive account of the detailed behaviour of man or of any other particular animal species.
• we need a definition. An entity, such as a baboon, is said to be altruistic if it behaves in such a way as to increase another such entity’s welfare at the expense of its own. Selfish behaviour has exactly the opposite effect. ‘Welfare’ is defined as ‘chances of survival’, even if the effect on actual life and death prospects is so small as to seem...