No one claims that genes will live forever and even beyond the heat death of the universe.<p>The term &quot;immortal&quot; in this context means that it lives far longer than individual organisms. A gene will typically remain unchanged for many, many generations of ephemeral individuals. We can talk about &quot;a gene&quot; while talking about the same thing in multiple individuals in the same generation and in multiple generations. It&#x27;s a piece of binary information.<p>Of course, eventually, a gene may vanish because no individuals survive that carry it (e.g. due to competition from other genes, or because the entire species vanishes in some catastrophe).