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Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since. Why are there miles and miles of "unused" DNA within each of our bodies? Why should a bee give up its own chance to reproduce to help raise her sisters and brothers? With a prophet's clarity, Dawkins told us the answers from the perspective of molecules competing for limited space and resources to produce more of their own kind. Drawing fascinating examples from every field of biology, he paved the way for a serious re-evaluation of evolution. He also introduced the concept of self-reproducing ideas, or memes, which (seemingly) use humans exclusively for their propagation. If we are puppets, he says, at least we can try to understand our strings. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Synopsis
In this revised edition of his bestselling book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins demonstrates how cooperation can evolve even in a basically selfish world.Contains two new chapters and a wealth of remarkable new insights into the biological world.
Customer Reviews
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It changed my view on the links between genes and behavior
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Reviewer:
Bertrand Ducharme
from Quebec, Canada
December 12, 1999
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As many readers mentionned it, this book contains a paradigm-shifting view on natural selection centered on the replication of individual genes.It also presents an open-minded view on the nature of genes that is very different from the one habitually popularized. Because of it, this book made me see for the first time with a favorable eye explanations linking together genes and behavior. In it, no gene is said to be the unique and direct cause of a behavior. It rather says that when all other factors stay the same, including environmental factors, changing a sole gene could alter a behavior in a given and precise way. That is a very different view. The book is easy and pleasant to read. Concepts usually drowned in lots of technical details are here simply put and clearly explained. It is a clever book. It uses a lot of logical and deductive thinking, accompanied with many experimentaly verifiable predictions. It also seems to me a somewhat speculative book because it suggests implicitly that all differences in observed animal behavior could be linked to specific genes, which is far from being proven. It is also a paradoxical book. On one side, it gives due credit to the mecanism of genes replication, and so clarifies many aspects of natural selection. On the other side, it deliberately uses, as a convenient shorten way of speaking, a language attributing some will to the genes, which tends to confuse the issue.
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Read the book, not just the title
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Reviewer:
Brett Evill
from Canberra, Australia
November 25, 1999
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This book was first published in 1976, and instantly became one of the classics of popular science. It stands as the best available introduction to modern evolution theory for the lay reader. Curiously, while the actual content of the book has been becoming more and more mainstream over the past twenty-odd years, the book itself has been acquiring a reputation for controversiality. My own feeling is that most of the critics cannot have ever read past the title. Dawkins makes it abundantly clear that the selfishness of genes is metaphorical. How anyone could have read the book and come away with the impression that Dawkins ascribes motives and attitudes to genes defies my understanding. The theories that Dawkins puts forward are utterly mechanistic, and entirely in accord with conventional genetics and molecular biology (which are indeed outlined quite clearly in the introductory chapters). Another misunderstanding (now fortunately less common) is that Dawkins predicts the selfish behaviour of all animals. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, 'The Selfish Gene' attempts to show how the forces of evolution give rise to [a limited degree of] altruism when they would seem, at first glance, to promote utter selfishness.
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8 people found this review helpful.
2 did not.
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Excellent, simply excellent. Buy it. Read it. Recommend it.
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Reviewer:
Hersh (hersh@uswest.net)
from Portland, Oregon
November 3, 1999
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I must say this book is excellent. The concepts are explained in a way that makes them very easy to grasp. The metaphors are truly illuminating. Dawkins may be the best science writer I have ever read. The people who gave him one star must have serious problems in comprehending simple logic. I read one review where the guy was criticizing Dawkin's for titling the book "The Selfish Gene". His argument was that genes being molecules could not be selfish. WELL NO DUH!!! The genes are not selfish in an anthropomorphic sense they just behave as though they were only interested in their own replication. And this behaviour arises because they descended from succesful ancestors that had the same behaviour. Even the word "behaviour" is not absolutely the best fit here. We could say the genes operate to maximize their replication. But all that rewording is only necessary for people who cannot bring themselves to accept the stark true logic of Dawkin's book. To the rest of us once Dawkins has illuminated the concept its logical appeal is self evident. Nitpicking the semantics is pretty lame.
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9 people found this review helpful.
2 did not.
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Molecule mind.
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Reviewer:
awilliams73@hotmail.com
from Sydney
November 1, 1999
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Selfish genes? The last time I looked, genes are simply made of adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine. Where is the room on each gene for their own mind, attitude or selfish intention? These are levels of activity that don’t exist on a chemical level. Intentions come about after the interaction and experience of a mind. Don’t assign minds to strips of chemical. Where is the evidence of a DNA code for selfishness on each gene? Have they been found? Of course not. The currency such an absurd concept has gained shows the lengths that some people will go to pass the blame for human follies onto someone or something else. It is time people took responsibility for their own mistakes, rather than trying to find a scientific way to blame nature. People make mistakes and get things wrong. That is a more natural foible in us than selfishness. So own up to it. Don’t blame nature. After reading an alternative book, Our Wild Niche, I realized why I have been suspicious for so long about the jaundiced view of nature being peddled by too many of my colleagues. Evolution is survival of the wildest, not survival of the fittest! Animals adapt to their environment by becoming as wild or attuned to that environment as they can. They evolve to fit in beautifully. The really neat point is that to become the wildest animal in a niche, an animal has to open up and become one with that niche. It has to become ‘receptive’ to the environment so that it can instinctively read any available sign first. Is being open selfish? I don’t think so.
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3 people found this review helpful.
25 did not.
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