Books The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - Life is a watch too complex to create
No, this isn't an Ayn Rand book urging you to be more selfish.

I consider The Selfish Gene to still be one of the cornerstones of Evolutionary Dynamics theory, particularly in its extension of biological dynamics into the non-biological world. Memetics really took general evolutionary theory past a threshold for information and soft sciences. I found its concepts to be invaluable for one of my grad papers on international systems where I made further extrapolations from both biology and memetics, formulating more specific characteristic traits shared by all extreme complexity nonlinear evolutionary systems.

Just as Darwin was not perfect, though, Dawkins himself oversimplifies at times. The scales at which these "games" transpire outside a vacuum include multi-gene traits, male-female trait-complimenting within speciation, role hierarchy, inter-species symbiotic relationships, larger populations, and even whole ecosystems. Furthermore, non-zero sum outcomes are more prevalent than winner-takes-all. Thus accounting for the multitude of levels at which competition occurs and adding, for example, Nash Equilibriums, one can only begin to explore the infinite complexity of how systems evolve.

On the religion aspect of this book, I think Dawkins does a fine job showing how biology and the workings of the universe do not necessarily "bare witness" to a god with the way life works, the planets revolve around the sun, or the rain falls from the sky. Biological evolution is a very specific example of this and case studies in transitional fossils, the newer computer experiments, and showing the prevalence of evolution everywhere help bare it out quite well here. At times, however, he seems to get a little preachy unconstructively to people who will likely just attribute their rationale to faith, anyway.

For a more recent and legally interesting exploration of the creationism v. evolution debate, I recommend the Nova documentary "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" for its timeliness and brevity. While I think this discussion is essentially long past over, even for an agnostic like myself I'm not going to dismiss all spiritualism or interest into the nature of consciousness or existence itself. The twisting of science using half-truths and ignorance in support of specific institutional dogmas is fair game for attack, though. And I have to admit The Selfish Gene was as successful as I think one can be in long-form.

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Rating: - Un libro indispensable en nuestra biblioteca.
Dado que mi "review" de este libro no es nada original comparado con las que ya se han escrito, la escribo en español. Este libro también se ha traducido en Español, aunque la que yo compré es la edición del trigésimo aniversario en inglés. La edición a la que aquí se hace referencia. El libro de Dawkings escrito hace ya 30 años, es vigente y creo que es un libro indispensable en la biblioteca personal. Un best seller en su lenguaje de origen me parece que es poco conocido en países hispanoparlantes, he visto pocas referencias a él, sin embargo creo que será más conocido en los próximos años, por sus implicaciones, su lenguaje, su sencillez y la complejidad de sus ideas. Es un libro que recomiendo ampliamente a estudiantes de biología, biólogos y público en general. La idea de "memes" creo que también es muy importante sobretodo en el siglo XXI donde la información se replica a gran velocidad. También es un libro que se lo recomendaría a las personas que tienen un interés por la filosofía y las ciencias sociales, dos disciplinas que aún se comportan como si Darwin jamás hubiera existido. Así pueden imaginarse a este libro como una versión del "Origen de las Especies y la Selección _Natural" (sobre todo de la Selección Natural) de Darwin RELOADED.

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Rating: - If you read one book on evolution...
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.

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Rating: - Why take an interest in science?
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.