Farage: Beware of the Frog

Frogs are more vicious than you might think. Russell Jones on a busy week for Nigel Farage.

Altruism puzzled Darwin. In The Descent of Man, he noted the paradox between evolution’s demands that each generation prioritised the survival of its genes, and the undeniable fact that those who sacrificed their lives for others ‘would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature’. The selfish gene has an odd habit of making us care for others.

Not all animals are like this, of course. We’ve all heard the fable in which the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the river, reasoning that his altruism would be repaid: if the scorpion stung the frog, it would result in the deaths of them both. Halfway across the water, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, explaining that he can’t help it: it’s in his nature.