Selected Product:
| The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
Paperback
Edition: 3
Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release Date: 2006-05-25
ISBN-10: 0199291152
ISBN-13: 9780199291151
List Price: $15.95
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands of readers to rethink their beliefs about life.
In his internationally bestselling, now classic volume, The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains how the selfish gene can also be a subtle gene. The world of the selfish gene revolves around savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit, and yet, Dawkins argues, acts of apparent altruism do exist in nature. Bees, for example, will commit suicide when they sting to protect the hive, and birds will risk their lives to warn the flock of an approaching hawk.
This 30th anniversary edition of Dawkins' fascinating book retains all original material, including the two enlightening chapters added in the second edition. In a new Introduction the author presents his thoughts thirty years after the publication of his first and most famous book, while the inclusion of the two-page original Foreword by brilliant American scientist Robert Trivers shows the enthusiastic reaction of the scientific community at that time. This edition is a celebration of a remarkable exposition of evolutionary thought, a work that has been widely hailed for its stylistic brilliance and deep scientific insights, and that continues to stimulate whole new areas of research today.
If you read one book on evolution...
| Customer Rating: | | If you want to learn about evolution, this is the first book you should read. If you think you know evolution, this is the book you need to read. |
Why take an interest in science?
| Customer Rating: | Why should we care about Darwin's Theory of Evolution? Is it a bad thing that around half of the American population doesn't accept it?
Simply put, evolution is arguably the greatest attempt to answer some of the eternal epistemological questions such as why are we, the nature of morality, and what we are. From a biological perspective, it actually answers what we are and explains how all this beautiful and complex life arouse in a very simple and gradual process.
The Selfish Gene is a work of popular science written in the mid 70's that flips the basic understanding of evolution. The paradigm shift the reader goes through is important: Understanding evolution from the eye of the gene instead of an organism or a group of organisms. Dawkins uses metaphors to describe DNA as replicators and organisms as a type of vehicle for them. This language makes it stimulating and easy to read. In the final chapter it mentions that replicators (DNA) can reach beyond their "own" organism (vehicle) and affect the outside world with everything from a Beaver Dam to parasites. This last idea also provides the basis for The Extended Phenotype, a direct sequel.
When the Selfish Gene was first published it received criticism on the grounds that it promoted selfishness and social Darwinism....these critics did not read the book (or at least not thoroughly) and seemed to have confused Richard Dawkins with Ayn Rand. The "selfishness" of the gene is a metaphor used to explain that genes, from the very first replicator in the primeval soup, exist solely to copy themselves. This could lead to a confusion and tempt people to look at evolution from the view of the individual organism and justify the idea that it's all about personal survival. But as Dawkins reminds us, we need to look at it down to the gene. From the eye of the gene, altruism makes a lot of sense. The altruism displayed in kin, for example, is the product of a genetic greater good because the genes are focused on the gene pool rather than their personal "survival machine."
God is an unanswerable question but religion and theology really need to be put under the microscope today. Evolution completely undermines the big three monotheistic religions (Islam, Christianity, Judaism) because it replaces the talking snake and metaphors of Adam and Eve with the eloquence and proof of hard science. People who believe in evolution and Christianity confuse me because what they're essentially saying is that Christ died to atone for a mere story.
People who argue against evolution either don't know the facts or they are intellectually dishonest. Lee Strobel, Kent Hovind, and Ben Stein are some of the bigger names trying to get creationism in the classroom under the guise of "Intelligent Design." They argue for "micro-evolution" (a pseudo-scientific term for eugenic breeding) but don't believe in speciation, natural selection, and as they put it, "macro-evolution". They make arguments about the world being "perfect for life." Well the world is "beautiful" and its conditions "perfect" because we have adapted to meet its settings as evolution shows, it's NOT the other away around. The glove didn't come before the hand.
Neil DeGrasse, an astrophysicist, does a good job at exposing Intelligent Design for how ridiculous it really is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPLn9nv26NM
Religion tells us that we're wretched because of two people eating from a tree of knowledge, (because learning is of the Devil apparently.) Science provides us with a much more realistic sense of humility based on facts: We are not above the food chain, we're just on top of it. Our memory is not perfect. We're designed to pass on genes. Consciousness has yet to be fully understood. Our emotions are chemical mechanisms, our language and literature invaluable tools. We have the extreme privilege of deepening our understanding of these things and it would be such a waste to not even try!
In a TV series called Cosmos, Carl Sagan once said that if we condense time starting with the Big Bang to the present into the scale of a year, it shows that humans have been around for roughly seven seconds. We've come a long way in those seven seconds and the journey may never end. From the water in our bodies to the calcium in our bones, we are as Sagan would put it, "Made of star stuff. And a way for the universe to know itself."
Biology is a great place to start on our journey for knowledge and Richard Dawkins has provided what could be an exciting first step with The Selfish Gene.
Read it and enjoy it. |
We have a genetic predisposition to act self interestedly? Who woulda thunk it?
| Customer Rating:  | Perhaps when this book first dropped 30 years ago as the blueprint for evolution it was considered radical. Today it's taken as a given that the primary motivating force for behavior has a genetic basis. This shift in attitude may be a direct result of the widespread influence of The Selfish Gene, but I wouldn't know. I wasn't around then. But this is a fine work to help everyone understand the core essence of human nature, and how we can use our superior capacity for reason to create a society of compassion that compliments our biological imperative.
With the existence of such formidable works as this, it remains positively astounding that any debate should remain on the matter of Creationism, Intelligent Design or whatever transparent euphemism is currently fashionable amongst the fundamentalists so populous in rural regions.
Of particularly acute interest to those seeking a slight edge in the competition of the fit should be chapter 9. This is something I most certainly will be passing on to those with whose success I have a genetic interest. Most, however, will never find their way to it, which suits me just fine. The less you know, the better it is for me. Hahahahaha!
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Shockingly Good
| Customer Rating: | | Very well written book. Anyone with no background in Biology will be able to understand this book without any trouble. Richard Dawkins also provides good evidences and detailed explanations throughout the book. If you are a religious person, beware that this book might shock you in several ways. |
The Selfish Gene
| Customer Rating: | A mind blowing book. I read it 30 years ago and just re-read the slightly enhanced newer edition. Chapter 2, which introduces the idea that genes, not organisms, are the focus of evolution always gives me a feeling of awe, the closest I can come to a religious experience -- but, of course, Dawkins would not approve of that.
Some of the chapters could be heavy going to a casual reader, demanding quite a bit of thought to follow the arguments. Along the way there are some nice descriptions of weird animal behavior.
One of the additional chapters discusses the extended phenotype, and made me want to read Dawkins' book of that title. |
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