Passing of Ideas

Albinism is one of the topic Dawkins discusses in the sixth chapter of “The selfish gene”. How is it that albinism survives when it has been proven to be so inefficient? It’s simple. Albinism is a rare mutation present only in one out of every 20,000 people, but it is a disease that rarely kills, and it doesn’t affect all of its carriers. Therefore, the chances of having an albino baby are extremely slim, but always present. You can only have an albino baby if both you and your couple carry the gene, which is extremely difficult. However, all descendants are carriers, and just because the albino person doesn’t later have kids it doesn’t mean the chain is broken, because the person’s brother, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, will all carry the gene, but it’ll only be activated if they have a baby with another person who comes from an albino family. So the chances are extremely small to have an albino baby, but they are just as small as to the disease of albinism becoming extinct. Instead, if there was a dominant disease which killed its carriers, it would become extinct in its first appearance, because it would not get passed on. In the book Dawkins talks about albinos being attracted to other albinos so that the gene would be passed on, however, this is not true, and he admits that this doesn’t happen even though it would help the albino genes. I think the same happens with human ideas. If they don’t get passed on, because they are not “dominant”, then they will die in their first appearance, instead, if they manage to get passed on to the others they will live and be prosperous, even if they’re not dominant. Also, the fact that two people share ideas doesn’t mean that they should be attracted to each other, although in the real world I think they would. Maybe some ideas come with genes. Maybe that’s why people say “Look, that baby is just like his father, he’s always jumping around”. I don’t think that the “jumping around” gene exist, although it maybe does. Also, it could just be that the kid is trying to imitate his father, although I have heard this expression with babies whose parents are dead. And also, it could just be a coincidence, but I think these things also get passed on, and that the theory of Gregory Mendel doesn’t only work with genes, but with other things, such as ideas as well.