Books : The Selfish Gene
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.5
EAN: 9780199291144
ISBN: 0199291144
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: May 18, 2006
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Sales Rank: 131106
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages. This 30th anniversary edition includes a new introduction from the author as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews. As relevant and influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research.
Amazon.com Review:
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
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
The first thing I will say about The Selfish Gene (TSG) is that it is not the first book on evolution you should read although as a Dawkins book it is not a bad choice but for those unfamiliar with both, then I would suggest Climbing Mount Improbable or The Blind Watchmaker first. Both of those books by Dawkins have a much broader, more generalized, look at natural selection and evolution.
TSG is an entirely different type of book because it is particularly academic and a very complex read on specific lines of reasoning that are even aimed at correcting the misconceptions of big name professional biologists. It assumes that the reader will be somewhat acquainted with Darwinism and evolution. If you are not then I would strongly urge that you pass on TSG until you do. In fact, you will bring much more to TSG and get much more out of it if you spend time on his above mentioned works first. I would also suggest Darwin's own "The Origin of Species" if you can.
The reason for doing this is that during the 1970s TSG entered midway into a battle within evolutionary theory to settle some disputes and to make this version of Darwinism accessible to the general reader. If you don't know much about why TSG was needed in the first place then I don't think it will make that much sense to read it now. If, however, you understand what is going on previous to it and how it is presently used, then TSG becomes mandatory reading but it is not like Dawkins other works ... Read More
Rating:  -
Richard Dawkins is a respected scientist, and as a communicator to the public of the marvels and intricacies of evolutionary biology he has no rival but Stephen Jay Gould. "The Blind Watchmaker" and "Climbing Mount Improbable" are enthralling, the best kind of popular science-writing. "The Ancestor's Tale", richer and denser, is equally excellent.
Is this what has given Dawkins the Omniscience Delusion: the belief that he can also write authoritatively about history, sociology, cultural theory, philosophy, theology and other subjects about which he knows nothing whatever? Or is it the routine vanity of scientists, who think that science is "real" and other disciplines are fluffy nonsense?
I read this book years ago and recently re-read it to see if it was as bad as I had remembered. It was. To call this book childish would be an insult to children of the world. It contains more elementary flawed thinking than "The House at Pooh Corner", with the difference that A.A. Milne's examples were Intended to be funny.
That a book like this, based on fallacies that any Philosophy 101 student should be able to see through, can both be taken seriously and become a best-seller, is a dire comment on the erosion of literacy, the decline in critical thinking, the impact of television and the Internet, or some other catastrophe that I'm much too young to start droning on and on about.
Rating: -
When a Creationist asked Mr. Dawkins "Can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?", Dawkins was clearly stumped. If the socalled authority on the topic is unable to answer this simple question, what value is his book? Creationists can answer it. Evolution is a dead dogmatic institution rotting on the dusty book shelves of universities. Only social outcasts and weird beard professors are capable of sustaining belief in this dead institution which blinds itself to the facts in order to maintain faith in the absurd creed of evolution theory against Creation fact.
Rating: -
Wow. When I finished this book, I did something I had never done before: I read the same book again. The second time through, I underlined things and scribbled thoughts on the inside covers and in the margins and wrote emails to friends about questions forming in my mind. After that second pass, I bought and read Dawkins's "The Blind Watchmaker" and "The God Delusion" and watched his TED video and several other videos of his on YouTube. "The Ancestor's Tale" and "The Extended Phenotype" are on my to-do list. I am quite impressed with this guy.
"The Selfish Gene" is my clear favorite of his books so far, and quite possibly my favorite read of all time. I thought I already knew a lot about evolution, but this book refined my understanding substantially. And Dawkins has a gift for writing, an ability to take a subject that in the wrong hands could be quite dry and make it very interesting.
Now for some qualifications. First, if you don't already have a reasonable understanding of evolution and the process of natural selection, you should probably get that somewhere else before starting this book. Carl Zimmer's "Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea" and the accompanying PBS video (which I think you can see at pbs.org) are an approachable choice.
Second, this is not light reading. It's readable, but there is a lot going on in these almost 400 pages, and you should expect to spend some time thinking about what he is saying. This is not ... Read More
Rating:  -
"The Selfish Gene" is Richard Dawkins masterpiece, and admiration for the scope and detail of his exploration of animal life has been world wide. His gift of analysis and synthesis is like a giant microscope givng an entrance into an area of knowledge never revealed before.
He outdistances Charles Darwin in his penetration into animal life, animal behavior, and the biological mechanisms that influence and sometimes determines behavior. As a scientific study and exposition, it has no parallel in contemporary scientific writing.
But that is where its value ends.
Richard Dawkins is an Ethologist, as he indicates in the 1976 edition of his book, an observer and chronicler of animal behavior, following in the footsteps of his master, Niko Tinbergen, and one of the founders of this branch of zoology, Konrad Lorenz. But the leap that Richard Dawkins has made in this new branch of science, is to identify his findings in animal behavior with human behavior, and this is the foundation for his conclusions in ethics, psychology, social science, philosophy and theism.
He is convinced, with no empirical data to back it up, that human beings are animals, not only in the category of genus, which nobody denies, but in the category of specificity as well. And that has been the huge blunder in his scientific research.
The whole tower of atheism, his excursions into philosophy and religion are based upon this ... Read More
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