The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author

The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author | Richard Dawkins | Excellent.

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The Selfish Gene: ...

	The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author Richard Dawkins Oxford University Press, USA, 2006 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 287 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Among the world's greatest books

Not for nothing is this masterpiece often rated up there with Newton's Principia and Darwin's Origin of the Species. It is a masterwork of unparalleled proportions. I savored each page and was awestruck at the brilliance of Dawkins' achievement: to explain altruism on a molecular level. This is momentous and life-changing science writing at its very best. This is the real bible.

Excellent.

I bought this book while I was on vacation in Florida; it kept me away from the beach, but made the trip so much better. This was my first real introduction to the theory of evolution by natural selection, it made me see the world in a whole new light. The selfish gene is an extraordinarily well written guide to evolution, I recommend it to everyone.

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Worth the effort

One of the reasons Evolution is such an elegant theory,IMHO, is since it is intuitively understandable by people(open-minded ones, that is) who aren't inclined towards Sciences in general. There are intricacies in the theory that haven't been addressed by anyone in popular non-fiction. Dawkins gives a rigorous introduction with well chosen examples towards what seems an anomalous behavior among species. The mathematical/probabilistic method in which theories are corroborated/debunked might not be suitable for all readers. It will take time to understand and appreciate the author's POV but it's well worth the effort.

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Fascinating scientific book with fascinating bias

I've read a half of this book and found Dawkings' view on humans as solely 'survival machines' really disappointing and provoking. He could be less passionate about his own ideas.

The facts in this book are nice and fascinating, like any scientific truth. It is their interpretation that can disappoint the reader, but luckily, interpretation validity fades out as we look further into the past and future, and of course, in the light of other facts.

Feeling need to soft the impression left by the book, I found the following nice paragraphs from the Genome Project papers:

"As we enter a genomic era in medicine and biology, perhaps the greatest danger I see stems from the enormous emphasis placed on the human genome by the media. The successes of medical genetics and genomics during the last decade have resulted in a sharp shift toward an almost completely genetic view of ourselves. I find it striking that 10 years ago, a geneticist had to defend the idea that not only the environment but also genes shape human development. Today, one feels compelled to stress that there is a large environmental component to common diseases, behavior, and personality traits! There is an insidious tendency to look to our genes for most aspects of our "humanness," and to forget that the genome is but an internal scaffold for our existence.

We need to leave behind the view that the genetic history of our species is the history par excellence. We must realize that our genes are but one aspect of our history, and that there are many other histories that are even more important. For example, many people in the Western world feel a connection to ancient Greece, from which arose fundamental features of Western architecture, science, technology, and political ideals (such as democracy). Yet, at best a tiny fraction of the gene pool of the Western industrialized world came from the ancient Greeks. Obviously, this fact in no way diminishes the importance of ancient Greece. So it is a delusion to think that genomics in isolation will ever tell us what it means to be human." [[...]]

That paper also argues that genome literacy can teach us how to get rid of racism, cruelty towards animals, and some other bad habits. So, everything gonna be alright. :)

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