This simulation demonstrates one of the key concepts in Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene": while individual organisms are mortal, genes can potentially live forever by being copied and passed down through generations.
In the visualization above, each horizontal row represents a generation of organisms. As time progresses, individual organisms are born, reproduce, and die (indicated by fading), but their genes continue in their offspring. Some genes may mutate (indicated by striped patterns), creating genetic variation on which natural selection can act.
The key insight is that from a gene's perspective, organisms are merely temporary vehicles that carry them forward in time. While any individual organism has a finite lifespan, a successful gene can persist for millions of years by continually being copied into new organisms.
This simulation illustrates the fundamental shift in perspective that Dawkins presented in "The Selfish Gene." Rather than seeing organisms as the primary units of selection, Dawkins argued that we should view genes as the units that survive or fail to survive through natural selection.
As Dawkins wrote: "The genes are the immortals, or rather, they are defined as genetic entities that come close to deserving the title. We, the individual survival machines in the world, can expect to live a few more decades. But the genes in the world have an expectation of life that must be measured not in decades but in thousands and millions of years."
This perspective helps explain many aspects of evolution that are difficult to understand from an organism-centered view, including the evolution of altruistic behaviors, aging, and genetic conflicts.