Charles Darwin and the Brain

We can empathise. We can imagine how it is for others. A society run on crude Darwinian lines would be a ruthless, merciless place. Fortunately, natural selection gave us big brains. With those big brains we can plan a gentler society: the sort of society in which we would want to live. Evolution has no purpose; there's no benevolence there, no forward planning. Some people find that disturbing, but there is a better way to think about it. We, alone on Earth, have evolved to the extraordinary point where we can understand the selfish genes that shaped us. They are not models for how to behave, but the opposite. Because we are conscious of these forces we can work towards taming them. Through kindness and morality, modern medicine, charity, even paying our taxes, we can overthrow the tyranny of natural selection. Our evolved brains empower us to rebel against our selfish genes.

~~ Richard Dawkins, The Genius of Charles Darwin.