Everything is relevant, even evolution

I have been reading Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene, recently. You would have been pissed if you were the lady across from me at the library yesterday, who pursed her lips and frowned when I laughed after reading the following:



“Hawks always fight as hard and as unrestrainedly as they can, retreating only when seriously injured. Doves merely threaten in a dignified conventional way, never hurting anybody. If a hawk fights a dove the dove quickly runs away, and so does not get hurt. If a hawk fights a hawk they go on until one of them is seriously injured or dead.”



Dawkins says every member of any society always behaves either like a hawk or like a dove. Some are naturally inclined to be one or the other, but we all modify our behavior based on who confronts us. Finally, scientific proof! Nobody in the band is either the hawk or the dove. We all fight as hard and unrestrainedly as we can, “to the pain,” as the Dread Pirate Roberts might say. Then, gratified, in peaceful moments, we quiet ourselves, and merely threaten in a dignified way.