"The Selfish Gene" 40th Anniversary Edition: An Exploration of Evolutionary Theory by Richard Dawkins

H.P.J.M.: I have always loved science and the natural world and I'm a big Dawkins fan - but hadn't read his first, ground-breaking book.

"The Selfish Gene" is a provocative title, but gets to the essence of the big idea. DNA is a type of "replicator", a special type of molecule that copies itself. Because DNA "wants" to make copies of itself, it "uses" survival machines - us, other animals, all living organisms - to make as many copies of itself as possible.

Thus genes - which Dawkins loosely defines as segments of DNA responsible for some behaviour - are "selfish" because they want to copy themselves as much as possible. This may involve co-operating with other genes.

While the gene is the centre of this story, Dawkins looks at individual organisms and groups of organisms to make the examples concrete. This personification goes a long way. We go on a tour of aggression, kinship - including offspring, mates, interaction with other species and see how various things can be explained under the selfish gene hypothesis.

Powerful ideas from other disciplines, like game theory are used to support the claims. For example, the prisoner's dilemma can be one way of...

United Kingdom on Nov 15, 2023

Alessandro: I recommend this book to literally anyone who is even remotely curious to investigate what Darwinism, at its core, really is. It’s mostly an enjoyable read, although a tad verbose and probably too detailed at times; but scientists tend to be very concerned at the idea that they may not have wholly justified their statements, so I guess Dawkins can be excused for sometimes going too deep and getting almost sidetracked.

Italy on Nov 13, 2023

Geoff S: First read the original at university in, I believe, 1979. It became a bit of a bible for me at the time, but since then I have diverged from the author by becoming a Christian, swapping the worship of science for the worship of God! Nevertheless it is a great book and remains a foundation stone in my understanding of how the natural world operates. I find no conflict between science and my religious belief - it is important to reconcile beliefs with scientific discovery (only a tiny minority of 'Christians' are flat-earthers, or believe the universe is 4000 years old!). Re-reading this book as well as other later books from Prof Dawkins is vital in testing and reaffirming my Christian beliefs, and arming me as a Christian Apologist.

United Kingdom on Oct 13, 2023

Prakhar: Avshdj

India on Sep 13, 2023

PembrokeSorbonne: This is Dawkins' famed seminal work on his view of evolution written in the 70s. It has been recognised as a classic of modern scientific writing. It is also where he presented his view of natural selection via individual gene. In the first  chapter, he already clearly stated his unique view in contrast to selection based on group or the larger category of species which is a more conventional view at the time. Chapter two on replicators and chapter three on the immortal gene are the key chapters by which Dawkins explains the nature of a gene as a replicator exhibiting selfish behaviour in evolution. The primeval soup environment had molecules that are replicatators, molecules that are with longevity and/or capacity to replicate themselves with high longevity/fecundity/copying-fidelity. The gene made of replicating DNA molecules are the basic unit of evolution responding to natural selection pressure. A gene's replicating feature makes it possibly "immortal", for it can survive for a million years though many don't make it past the first generation. Dawkins characterises the gene as a survival machine with the capacity to learn from the environment in order to respond ...

United States on Jul 01, 2023

Will Fry: Listed as number 10 on The Guardian’s “100 best nonfiction books of all time”, Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene explores a “gene’s-eye view of evolution” in a re-imagining of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. He explains his thesis concisely in the first chapter:

“I shall argue that the fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene, the unit of heredity. To some biologists this may sound at first like an extreme view. I hope when they see in what sense I mean it they will agree that it is, in substance, orthodox, even if it is expressed in an unfamiliar way.”

This book is also the origin of our current English word meme, for better or for worse. While I typically use “meme” to refer to image files shared on social media platforms, usually with text typed over the image, the actual word refers to: “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture”. Not every common word in our tongue has a definite point of origin, so it’s a minor pleasure of mine to read a book that is known to have originated...

United States on Sep 21, 2016

S. Meadows: It's important to note that this is a book written back in the 1970s. The author who wrote it should not be mistaken for the divisive figure that he has become within the last 10 years. The edition I picked up was the 30th anniversary edition, which comes with 3 prefaces and a foreword.

Reading the first few chapters, the most striking thing is Dawkins' engaging narrative style. It can be little surprise that subsequent to writing this he was made a professor for the public understanding of science, as his written communication is crystal clear. In addition to the main text, there are some lengthy endnotes which appear to be mostly the product of later editions where there is an extremely defensive tone, in some exasperation of opposition born out of misunderstanding of the ideas and terminology used in the first edition.

Although the title of the book implies a book on genetics, this is largely confined to the early couple of chapters with the majority of the book looking at animal behaviour from a gene's point of view. It is easy to see why some might take him for an atomist from these discussions, as he gives little countenance to causes other than genetic...

United Kingdom on Sep 21, 2012