The Selfish Gene

by Richard Dawkins (Goodreads author!)

published	May 25th 2006 by Oxford University Press, USA
binding	Paperback
isbn	0199291152 (isbn13: 9780199291151)
pages	400
description	Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves ...more [close] 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 [close]
date added	02-04-07 edit book

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Charles rated it:

10/06/07

This is the crown jewel of Dawkin's popular works. It is a masterpiece of choice illustration, finely honed definitions and pedantically nuanced distinctions, all framed by his engaging, pacey style. It has justly made him an iconic populariser. It is his best referenced and most tightly reasoned book.

He starts with characteristic confidence: Darwinian evolution is as established as the earth's solar orbit. Blind prejudice or intellectual deficiency alone could misinterpret the data. The de...more This is the crown jewel of Dawkin's popular works. It is a masterpiece of choice illustration, finely honed definitions and pedantically nuanced distinctions, all framed by his engaging, pacey style. It has justly made him an iconic populariser. It is his best referenced and most tightly reasoned book.

He starts with characteristic confidence: Darwinian evolution is as established as the earth's solar orbit. Blind prejudice or intellectual deficiency alone could misinterpret the data. The debate about his ingenious central thesis, the validity of a gene-focussed and gene-preserving explanation of altruism and other counter-intuitive behaviours, continues 31 years on.

Strange then that as an exponent of hard-nosed empiricism, that his second chapter should take flight into the hyperspace of imaginative speculation. From p.12-14 see the brave professor leaping confidently into the realm of pre-biotic evolution. A world of hydrogen and methane, lashed with lightning, in which pre-biotic substrates accumulate to such excess they form a scum on the primordial soup. Serious doubts about the duration and degree of an intensely reducing atmosphere are voiced by geologists, but this is no deterrent to our bold champion. Watch the analytical chemists sucking their teeth and wincing as the author leaps further into the abyss, the bungee cord of tedious documentation and observation already looking dangerously frayed. Where are the pyrimidine nucleosides? (quite impossible to synthesize). What of the instability of cytosine? How can phosphate be preserved without precipitation? What on earth will enable bases, sugars (requiring quite different synthetic conditions) and phosphate to meet, and then miraculously and without enzymes to fuse correctly as even the most primitive proto DNA/RNA. The gaping abyss of data appears unending, yet Poppins-like, our professor seems to assure us, if we wish for it hard enough, however impossible - anything can happen. The difficulties have but just begun, what of chirality, what of the propensity of polymers to hydrolyse, how to survive intense ozone-less UV radiation? But lo! (p. 15) Our seer perceives a miracle - a virgin birth! * No, more amazing still, a virgin Replicator, unbegotten yet always begetting! Intrinsically unstable enough to have been formed initially, but stable enough to fill the whole earth with copies. Despite a studied vagueness here he suggests a primitive form of DNA (now his latest vogue is AATE). In p 18. our mysterious replicator wonderfully accumulates longevity, fecundity and copying fidelity. By p.19, wonder of wonders, it has metamorphosed into a `simple' cell, with protein synthetic machinery, chiral purity, an intact membrane barrier, metabolic, transport, repair functions and most marvellous of all the ability to reproduce the whole. By p.20 the miracle transformation of `goo' to you is complete.

Here is narrative that makes the wildest encounters of the Enterprise or Galactica look as mundane as Coronation Street by comparison. Here is drawn out, revivified spontaneous generation similar to the kind Pasteur definitively crushed in 1862, 3 years after the Origin was published. The imaginary link in chapter 2 is indispensable to the chain of Dawkin's whole thesis. But this is not science - it's wishful supposition. Here is a religious materialism that avoids the data, rather than re-examine its assumptions, however increasingly ridiculous they appear.

*(Footnote to p.16. Dawkins' over forced distinction between two Hebrew terms is artificial, as 10 min reference to a concordance might have warned him. It suggests over-reliance on doubting colleagues, dubiously disguised as theologians. See the Hebrew of Joel 1.8.) ...less

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Dave rated it:

04/27/08

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: anyone who wants to learn more about the world

I was led to read this book by way of one of those six-degrees-of-separation links that make the world the place that it is... I was watching the excellent documentary "The Smartest Guys in the Room" about my former employer, Enron, and it struck with me that the movie mentions "The Selfish Gene" as being one of Jeff Skilling's favorite books. A reader of Stephen Jay Gould's, I already had a bit of an interest in genetics and understood the book to expound upon one of my fav...more I was led to read this book by way of one of those six-degrees-of-separation links that make the world the place that it is... I was watching the excellent documentary "The Smartest Guys in the Room" about my former employer, Enron, and it struck with me that the movie mentions "The Selfish Gene" as being one of Jeff Skilling's favorite books. A reader of Stephen Jay Gould's, I already had a bit of an interest in genetics and understood the book to expound upon one of my favorite subjects, Darwinism, so I though I'd check it out for myself.

Richard Dawkins does a superb job of laying out his logic in a convincing and thorough manner, and there were a number of moments in reading the book that concepts long discarded to the periphery of my knowledge were brought into sharp focus. Some examples include the mechanisms of evolution during the days of the primordial soup, the workings of symbiosis and parasitism (and how and why they cross paths), and the concept of the game the "Prisoner's Dilemma"(as well as its relation to genetics).

I loved this book and would highly recommend to anyone with a slight interest in biology, evolution, or a curiosity for learning more about the fundamental forces at work in our world. I am somewhat amused that Dawkins' assertion, roughly and ineloquently summarized as organisms, including you and me, being the vehicle by which genes keep themselves immortal, is reminiscent of a Vonnegut book I read years ago called Hocus Pocus. More specifically, the similarities are to a book within the book Hocus Pocus, called the Elders of Tralfamadore, which contains one of my favorite sayings, that I say almost every day - "What germ ever lived a life this full of challenges and opportunities?"

Dawkins can be arrogant at times in a way that borders on hubris, but I find that this aspect of his writing is more a mechanism of his deep and considered thought and very quick intellect than of an overinflated ego. That said, it bears keeping in mind during this book that some critical thought and a questioning mind can be helpful in keeping Dawkins' assertions in perspective.
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