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The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins
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The selfish gene (original 1976; edition 2006)

by Richard Dawkins

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
10,775119639 (4.26)1 / 156
Best Popular Science Book Ever
Best Biology Book

This books changes everything
After reading this book you'll definitely change you.

Buy latest anniversary edition and read notes at the end of the book!
In audiobook edition notes are included!
  last | Nov 1, 2017 |
English (109)  Catalan (2)  Spanish (2)  Piratical (1)  Dutch (1)  Hebrew (1)  Italian (1)  French (1)  All languages (118)
Showing 1-25 of 109 (next | show all)
This is a one way journey to the truth. Reader beware ( )
1 vote drdolma | Feb 3, 2024 |
Only two complaints with this book. First, the author had a habit of introducing an idea and then saying that it wasn't really relevant to the book, and would drop it. It was weird to hit these dead ends, and made for disjointed reading. Second, the author used "man" in the supposedly universal sense, which doesn't actually exist (All men are mortal; Sarah is a man; therefore Sarah is mortal). Since this book was first written in the 1970s, when apparently logic did not exist (bellbottoms!), I'll let this slide. We are all a product of our times, and back in the author's day this was a reasonable way to write. Aside from these two issues, I loved the book. ( )
  blueskygreentrees | Jul 30, 2023 |
I read this book for English class in college. I thought it was well-written from a technical perspective, but its fundamental idea self-contradicts so much, I had to give it a low rating.

Basically, Dawkins starts off by saying "Genes aren't selfish or unselfish..." followed by writing a whole book trying to show how genes are, in fact, selfish. That's the contradiction. He simultaneously attests that genes do not exist in the world of human morality, but at the same time strictly follow a selfish human morality.

He further explains that every 'selfish' action a gene takes is 'by design', and every 'altruistic' one is 'a mis-firing' of a selfish action. So, looking at a natural phenomenon, he's decided that every time it does something "selfish" it's doing what it should, and every time it does something "altruistic" it's not doing what it should. "Should" according to whom? It's a natural phenomenon without morality!

It would be as if I were staring at a weather vane, and every time it pointed East, saying "oh the wind is doing what it's supposed to", and every time it pointed West I said "oh, that's a mis-firing of the wind, which is always Easterly by nature".

At the end though, there's an unrelated section in which he talks about how ideas spread and reproduce like genes. He actually coins the term 'meme' in this book to describe the unit of an idea. This blob is worth reading, in my opinion. The rest, well... ( )
  nimishg | Apr 12, 2023 |
good reminder for why pop science should be avoided ( )
  hk- | Apr 12, 2023 |
This book is 45 years old at this point, but it ages well. If you could ignore the handful of references to computers and floppy disks of the era, you could believe it was written relatively recently. We have, of course, learned since it was initially written, and the 30th anniversary edition I read did include some helpful interjections in addition to the extra chapters added to the second edition in 1989.

The Selfish Gene is and continues to be wildly popular for a reason. It provides an extremely accessible explanation of the mechanism of evolution, popularizing the concept that the gene is the fundamental building block that the whole process revolves around. What’s a gene? The definition he uses is approximately “any sequence of any length of DNA”, with the understanding that shorter sequences are more likely to survive longer unaltered than longer sequences, but allows him to ignore quibbling over terminology of specific lengths when it’s largely not meaningful to the concepts being presented.

The core idea is that genes that are successful are genes that increase the number of copies of themselves in existence. It explains the concept that there is a mechanism for even extreme “altruism”, such as an organism sacrificing itself for others to be selected for, if you recognize that multiple close kin relations each have many of their genes in common with that individual, and that dying saving several siblings increases the number of copies of your genes propagated to future generations than failing to do so.

It goes further into many other elements of how to view evolution from the perspective of individual genes, in specific environments, and how natural selection does and doesn’t work to change species over time.

One thing I’m not sure I was aware of, going into this reading of the book, is that Dawkins also coined the term “meme” and gave the first(?) presentation of ideas as replicators subject to very similar selection pressures as genes. This explanation is relatively simple and there are entire books on the concept now, but I did enjoy his short treatment here.


( )
  jdm9970 | Jan 26, 2023 |
It's painfully obvious I wasn't meant to be a geneticist. I'm still interested in the theory, just not on this granular of a level. I felt as though half of every chapter was like a huge math word problem.

Too many good books, not enough time. C'est la vie. ( )
  btbell_lt | Aug 1, 2022 |
Mind blowing and eye opening ( )
  dualmon | Nov 17, 2021 |
The subject matter was interesting, but kind of dry. Maybe it was just my mood while reading it. I may try reading it again. ( )
  Drunken-Otter | Aug 20, 2021 |
Read Aug 2021, Very good. ( )
  TeaBag88 | Aug 5, 2021 |
Excellent book with lucid arguments. Only failings are it's unwavering confidence of the selfish gene theory and the condescending tone of the author when it comes to specific disciplines and people. ( )
1 vote rogov | Jul 31, 2021 |
Leste i sammenheng med biologistudiet. Leste et godt sykke før jeg ga opp pga. kjedsomhet, men husker ikke spesifikt når jeg stoppet.
  Danpo | Jun 20, 2021 |
Interesting; but a difficult read; overly technical about the mathematical side og genetics/inheritance of DNA etc ( )
  JosephKing6602 | May 7, 2021 |
What makes a good book, in my opinion, is one that changes the way you view the world. It offers another way to think about how things are and why. It challenges you and amazes you. The Selfish Gene altered the way I see life on earth.

Dawkins is a fantastic writer and he does a superb job at describing complex operations using metaphors that are simple and connectable. It helped tremendously when he described the inner workings of DNA structure and the minute process of meiosis. I'm not too familiar with Game Theory but the examples he used made it easy to follow and understand for the most part.

The Selfish Gene shines most when Dawkins describes how certain animals behave in the wild, whether 'selfishly' or 'altruistically'. He uses real world studies which I found captivating. The fact that the female praying mantis rips the head off of her mate and then eats it either during or after copulation is wild!

By the end of the last chapter, I feel like I walked away with a fairly good understanding of his theory. The adage 'survival of the fittest' was never clear of who exactly benefits being the fittest. Is it the entire species? Is it the group of species? Is it the individual? Or is the answer found deeper inside the individual at the microscopic level?

Life arose as simple organisms but came to grow into extreme intricacy and complexity. The ancient single celled organism 'wanted' to proliferate and continue its existence. It came that through teamwork, or altruism, it (the replicating cell) could benefit itself, hence the selfishness. So I can see how this theory can have truth to it. I'm not a biologist however so of course I can be mistaken, but that's what I took away from this book.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in evolution and how life started on our beautiful planet. ( )
  ProfessorEX | Apr 15, 2021 |
This book was important in providing insight into evolutionary understanding of the gene. I found it interesting and educational but tedious at times. I have read other books by Dawkins and preferred the others as more direct. This book is valuable as a historical account of the origin of several important ideas. I modestly recommend this book. ( )
  GlennBell | Dec 28, 2020 |
I liked it, but I think most of the book has made it into contemporary culture; I found myself not learning as many things from it as I expected to. ( )
  isovector | Dec 13, 2020 |
this shit is the only science that has ever interested me in my whole life ( )
  ncharlt1 | Oct 11, 2020 |
I registered this book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14147557

I had this book on my wishlist for some time. Every now and then I would read something that was derogatory about the book and I would think maybe it's out of date or off somehow. So I put off getting and reading it. But a group I belong to set it for a book discussion and I decided now's the time.

Dawkins is remarkable in how he can convey complex biological information to the lay reader. So you could think he is nothing more than a science populizer. That would be plenty, of course, as we need those. But he's more. He doesn't just explain concepts; he synthesizes work by others into a new whole.

The Selfish Gene, originally written in 1976, spells out Dawkins' theme about natural selection: it is driven by the gene. However, he gives a definition of "gene" that may not coincide with that of others. Originated by G. C. Williams, he defines it as "any portion of chromosomal material that potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection." He further says "I am using the word gene to mean a genetic unit that is small enough to last for a large number of generations and to be distributed around in the form of many copies". It is deliberately vague.

In this book he answers many questions about natural selection, from how altruism evolves to how the concept of replication can be extended beyond the body ("vehicle") that protects the gene (the "extended phenotype").

Dawkins is careful to emphasize that genes do what they do through natural selection. They don't "want" or "need". Everything about life can be explained by evolution, although of course some specific answers have not yet been worked out.

Dawkins also spends time on why he uses the word "selfish", which connotes a deliberate self-interested consciousness. Successful genes are those that succeed in replicating themselves. Their actions always serve themselves and their copies. In this sense they are of course selfish, but that does not mean that they cannot cooperate with other genes or even cause their hosts to engage in altruistic behavior. There is nothing contradictory about selfish genes and altruism; that altruism serves to extend the life of the gene - by which is meant the further replication of that gene for many generations.

It seems that those who have attacked this book generally are those who did not read it, or somehow misunderstood it, as well as those whose beliefs required that they reject any thinking favoring the solid theory of evolution.

In this book Dawkins defines a new type of replication specifically related to humans that he calles "memes", based on cultural replication. The world over now thinks of memes as those pithy word-images popular on Facebook, but the word is meant to go beyond that.

Well worth reading. It took me several days, and I did not read all of the notes. Although not to be rushed, it is a book easily understood by those who want to understand evolution.
---
The 40th anniversay edition adds chapters plus a new 'afterword' that brings us up to date with newer advances in genetics. It is a substantially larger book than the original. ( )
1 vote slojudy | Sep 8, 2020 |
I bought this book because I'm fascinated by the idea of evolution - I mean, at first glance it appears utterly preposterous, right? So I wanted to take a closer look. I started by reading The Origin of Species (Darwin, of course). That was well worth-while but clearly his theory was wrong, for many reasons, most of which are given in the book, by Darwin himself. The key problem for Darwin was that whilst he knew there had to be some kind of inheritance of characteristics, he had no idea what the mechanism was. Genetics came to the rescue of evolutionary theories by providing such a mechanism. OK - so now I had to find out what a modern theory of evolution looked like. I read Niles Eldredge's Re-inventing Darwin, which turned out to be a book making a counter-case to ideas proposed by Dawkins. I found it pretty convincing, but then I hadn't read any Dawkins. It didn't really provide what I was looking for, anyway; the book doesn't set out a complete theory of evolution, instead it takes an academic debate into the popular science arena. Much time goes by and I end up with Gould's last collection of essays. It turns out that he was strongly opposed to many of Dawkins' ideas, too - but that book only gave a sketch of a theory, in two essays. Time to actually read some Dawkins, then and give the guy a fair hearing. I picked up his most famous book and found that I'd made another blunder; The Selfish Gene is about the evolution of altruism! Basically it's about animal behaviour. Fer goodness' sake; I might have to start reading the blurb before I buy books on evolution!

THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN CURTAILED IN PROTEST AT GOODREADS' CENSORSHIP POLICY

See the complete review here:

http://arbieroo.booklikes.com/post/335005/post ( )
  Arbieroo | Jul 17, 2020 |
Color me very impressed. I can now see why this is considered to be one of those hugely popular science books I keep hearing about and the reason why Dawkins has become so widely known and/or respected with or without his notoriety.

Indeed, the pure science bits were pretty much awesome. We, or at least I, have heard of this theory in other contexts before and none of it really comes as much surprise to see that genes, themselves, have evolved strategies that are exactly the same as Game Theory in order to find the best possible outcome for continued replication. Hence: the selfish gene.

Enormous simple computers running through the prisoner's dilemma with each other, rival genes, and especially within whole organisms which could just be seen as gigantic living spacecraft giving the genes an evolutionary advantage of finding new and more prosperous adaptations.

Yup! That's us!

I honestly don't see the problem. I love the idea that we are just galaxies of little robots running complicated Game Theories that eventually turn into a great cooperative machine where everyone (mostly) benefits, with plenty of complicated moves going way beyond hawks and doves and straight into the horribly complicated multi-defectors, forgivers, and other evolutionary styles that depend on the events that have gone before and the pre-knowledge (or lack of) a set end-date for the entire experiment... in other words, our deaths, whether pre-planned or simply the entire mass of genes just coming to realize that it's no longer in their best interest to keep pushing this jalopy around any longer if they're not getting anything out of it... like further replication. :)

Even when it's not precisely sex, it's still all about sex. :)

Of course, what I've just mentioned isn't the entire book, because, as a matter of fact, the book walks us through so many stages of thought, previous research, developments, mistakes, and upgraded theories and surprising conclusions based on soooooo much observable data that any of us might be rightfully confounded with the weight of it unless we were in the heart of the research, ourselves.

It's science, baby.

Make sure you don't make the data conform to your theory. Build your theory from observable data. Improve upon it as the building blocks are proved or disproved, keep going until it is so damn robust until nothing but a true miracle could topple it, and then keep asking new questions.

The fact is, this theory has nothing (or everything) to do with our lives. We play Game Theory, too, in exactly the same way every gene everywhere does, but we just happen to be able to make models on top of the situations and we're able to choose whether to see through the lies, the hawk strategies, or when to stop cooperating if the advantages work out much better for us if we did. We, like our genes, can choose long-term cooperative strategies or play everything like a Bear market. :)

Even this book says that it's very likely that Nice Guys can win, but just like our lives, the gene lives keep discovering ever more complicated strategies and all eventual strategies become more and more situational.

Isn't that us, to a tea? I wonder if most complaints about this book stem from complaints about Game Theory rather than the perceived conclusion (much better spelled out, not in this book, but in later books)... that atheism rules the day. It really isn't evident here. Instead, we have a macrocosm mimicking the microcosm and no one wants to challenge their comfortable world view.

Things aren't simple. All choices to betray or cooperate are then met with situation and memory and ever complex meta-contexts, the difference between us and genes being that we're self-aware and the genes are not.

Yes, yes, I see where the arguments can start coming out of the closet about self-determination and such, but that's not really the point of this book at all. The point is that it's a successful model that accurately describes reality. It has nothing at all to do with the macro-world except obliquely, and makes no value judgments on our art, our beliefs, or how we think about ourselves except in our uniquely stubborn and self-delusional ways that love to take things out of context and apply misunderstood concepts to our general lives and wonder why everything gets so screwed up. :)

But then, maybe I'm just applying my own incomplete models to yet another and we lousy humans still lack WAY TOO MUCH data to build a really impressively improved model. :)

Come on, Deep Thought. Where are you? :) ( )
  bradleyhorner | Jun 1, 2020 |
4.5*

A bit too pragmatic on some things but I'm glad he wrote the book. I wish I had been more focused while reading it, but I'll probably get back to it in a few years. ( )
  parzivalTheVirtual | Mar 22, 2020 |
It was decades ago that I read this, I remember thinking that it was OK but, I thought, claimed and ignored too much in stating its claim. ( )
  GirlMeetsTractor | Mar 22, 2020 |
The only book on biology that I've read; and what a read it was!
I never expected the book to be tailor made for layman, at the same time keeping the experts something to think about.
Complicated concepts are explained in an astonishingly simple manner. You kind of just breeze through them without even thinking about the effort that must have gone into creating such an influential work.

Quirky and sassy humor and is sprinkled throughout the book, which I loved. He has no qualms in delivering a bad "burn" to somebody if he feels like.

Sometimes the stuff does get boring, at which point even the author interjects and changes the tone.

Darwin's theories make a comeback with this book from a slightly different vantage point.

Would love to read more non-fiction books on varied topics from now on! ( )
  Govindap11 | Mar 21, 2020 |
In an accessible and witty manner, Richard Dawkins develops the ideas of the Selfish Gene. This book is written in such a manner that the layman can understand it quite well. This was Dawkins' first foray into Science writing for the masses, and I have heard that it is still his most successful. This book introduced the concept of the meme to the public eye, which is pretty interesting by itself.

The title of the book is slightly misleading, but on further interpretation the reasoning becomes clear. The Gene itself is a unit of heredity that 'wants' to reproduce. Notice the word I put in quotes. As a block of chemicals, the gene doesn't really have anything like consciousness, but it accomplishes its 'desires' by surrounding itself with a "survival machine," what we typically call a body. Since the gene wants to reproduce, the body wants that too. Since we live in reality, bodies have to find economically stable states that determine behaviors and allow them to copulate most efficiently. The Gene doesn't make a species inherently Selfish, but it does act in such a way that copies of it are spread to the next generation. ( )
  Floyd3345 | Jun 15, 2019 |
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