survival of the species
Today's falsehood is the idea that individual animals act for the benefit of their own species.
Let me give you an example.  When I was a kid, I watched a nature show about cougars.  The show 'documented' a single female cougar going about doing cougar-things and being generally cougar-like.  At one point she had cute little baby cougar kittens.  
Then a flood came.  The stream near her chosen lair swelled its banks and threatened to drown the kittens.  So, she carried one of the kittens up the hill to a new lair. She went back to get the second kitten, and the flood waters were even higher…
