River Out of Eden - The Replication Bomb

The Replication Bomb

In the last chapter, Dawkins considers how Darwinian evolution may look outside of planet Earth. It seems that the trigger event would be the spontaneous arising of self-replicating entities or the phenomenon of heredity. Once this process is initiated, it will launch an explosion of replicating entities until all available resources are used and all vacant niches are taken. Thus the title of the chapter.

Dawkins tries to distill ten milestones from the history of the only one replication bomb we know of, life on Earth. He strips any local conditions peculiar to Earth from these milestones which he calls thresholds, in the hope that these thresholds will be applicable to an alien evolution in an alien planetary system.

From the starting point of the Replicator Threshold, we may eventually reach the higher thresholds of Consciousness, Language, Technology, and Radio. The final threshold is Space Travel. In reaching the moon, we have hardly made it past the front door.