Typing this one. About three or four previous were dictated to the Nexus and posted as the Nexus interpreted my speech - so some of the text is obviously wrong. Today I am reading Robert Bellah's "Religion in Human Evolution". Starts with three nice quotations, one by T. Mann (from Joseph and His Brothers), one from Hegel, and one from Mencius. First point I'd like to note is a critique of Richard Dawkins (I love critiques of RD!) concerning his "The Selfish Gene" and how contemporary views favor the organism rather than the gene as the main unit of survival. But this critique immediately strikes me as a bit unfair - and I would rather argue both are simply models of what to notice in evolution rather than thinking one is right and the other wrong. The stronger interpretation is that both models are useful - and probably other models besides. But notice footnote 8 of the Preface RB says RD notes this as his point of view also in his next book "The Extended Phenotype".