Outrageous?

The Selfish Gene, a book by Richard Dawkins, is a very interesting creation. I would never think that so many people would be interested in reading about biology, but then again I never imagined biology could be explained in this way. It is easy to tell that Dawkins knows what e is talking about, yet he addresses his knowledge in such a casual way that he makes it easy for the reader to understand the points he makes.

However, as simple as his book may seem for him to understand, he creates so many analogies, parallels and examples that if you are not paying close attention to his every word, it is easy to get lost andf have to backtrack in order to fully understand. As I was reading, I found a particular part of chapter three very interesting, as it was one of his attempts to explain why people before lived longer than they did today. He then expresses possible ways to expand the human life span, and says we should ban reproduction before the age of forty or fifty to avoid the passing down of lethal genes that kill before that age. As I read this, I remembered a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift that we had read in class a little while ago, A Modest Proposal. Here, Swift suggests that poor Irish people could ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for the people of the upper classes. Although this seems a little more radical, both statements propose outrageous ideas that go against liberties established in our modern society.