However, analyzing natural selection at the level of the genes explains these situations. Those individuals share their alleles (forms of genes) with their family members; and what Hamilton showed is that natural selection favors traits that maximize the passage of underlying alleles to the next generation, whether or not those alleles are in the individual with that trait. [...]
So, are we comprised of selfish genes? Well, genes can’t literally be selfish, but yes, in a poetic sense that has some biological basis, we are. But this fact in and of itself has limited metaphysical implications. The term “selfish gene” is mainly a rhetorical device to explain the evolutionary process as I have described it above. [...]
What I’ve described here is called reductive elimination, whether fans of evolution are getting rid of meaning and purpose, or fans of neuroscience are getting rid of consciousness and the self. This strategy is often sold by an appeal to Occam’s razor, the principle that one should cut away any unnecessary assumptions to produce the simplest possible solution to any problem (often called parsimony). Although practically helpful within science in order to identify effective hypotheses and test them against alternatives, the principle loses its footing outside of science, and does not warrant or justify being radically minimalistic about reality as a whole. In fact its originator, William of Occam, was a man of faith and would have been horrified at his principle being wielded to slice off parts of his worldview (like God) that he held most dear.
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