If I Can’t Win Alone, Let’s Win Together!

🧬 Not All Genes Are Selfish Alone

Let’s say there’s a gene that helps a person take care of their younger brother.

At first you might think:

“Why would a gene care about someone else?”

But wait — what if that younger brother also has the same gene?

Then helping the brother… is really helping a copy of the gene.

That means: Some genes “work together” by helping other bodies that carry the same gene.

This is called kin selection — helping family is still helping your own genes.

👨‍👩‍👧 You Share Many Genes With Your Family

You share:

• 50% of your genes with your parents

• 50% with your siblings

• 25% with your cousins

So if a gene can’t survive in your body…
It might survive in your brother’s or sister’s body.

That’s why some animals (and humans) help their families, even at a cost.

Genes “bet” on more than one body.

🐜 Ants and Bees Do This Too

Ever wonder why worker ants don’t have babies?

They help their queen have babies instead.

Why?

Because they share 75% of their genes with the queen’s babies — more than they’d share with their own!

So the genes inside the workers are still winning, even if that ant never has kids.

That’s why they help, even if it looks like they’re giving something up.

🤝 The Rule of Helping

Genes are more likely to support:

✅ Themselves
✅ Their close copies in family
❌ Strangers with very different genes

This doesn’t mean people can’t be kind to strangers — of course they can.

But in nature, many behaviors that look like “kindness” come from genes trying to:

Help themselves or their copies survive.

Even kindness can be part of the gene game!

🧠 Big Idea

Genes aren’t just copying themselves — sometimes they copy by helping others who carry the same gene.

It’s like passing the baton in a relay race:
You don’t have to finish the race — as long as someone on your team does.

🧠 Recap

✅ Genes sometimes help other bodies with the same gene
✅ This is called kin selection
✅ You share 50% of your genes with close family
✅ Some animals help their family instead of reproducing
✅ Kindness in nature often helps the gene win the race