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 | It explains selection, evolution... even "reincarnation" from a different perspective

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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 293 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Careful when you choose the "red pill"

"Why are people?" This is the title of the first chapter of Selfish Gene. In the first paragraph of the book the author states that Charles Darwin made ii possible for us to answer this question sensibly. The book promises to help the reader answer this question and such others as "Is there meaning to life?" It delivers on the promise.

Dawkins has a unique gift for communication. As you read a paragraph densely packed with concepts and assimilate them, inevitably your mind goes "hmm... that's sounds good, but.." Invariably Dawkins has anticipated these objections and he deals with them one by one. There are many other good books out there which explain the theory of Charles Darwin but I would be surprised if any of them is as good as the Selfish Gene.

A word of caution. Starting to look at the world through Darwinian glasses is very similar to Neo's taking the "red pill" in matrix. These glasses make you question a lot of "facts" assumptions and even your sense of right and wrong, which can be disturbing.

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It explains selection, evolution... even "reincarnation" from a different perspective

Hacia el Buda desde el occidente: Sus Ensenanzas sin mitos ni misteriosI read this book for the first time in the 80's and found it excellent; it is quite well placed in number nine of the Discover Magazine 2006 list of Greatest Science Books of All Time. When Dawkins first published his book back in 1976, he wrote that, though the theory of evolution was generally recognized and barely doubted then, "the full implications of Darwin's revolution had yet to be realized." I feel positively that those implications are now absolutely realized and only religious fanatics dare to question natural selection. This quantum leap in universal understanding is due in a large proportion to The Selfish Gene. Dawkins not only explained Darwin's selection but also expanded it backward in time with sound clarifications to the emergence of the first self-replicable molecule and forward to the recent time through imaginative elucidations about the replication of cultural characteristics through what he calls "memes." Memes, the social equivalences of biological genes, is a word the author created and is nowadays of common use in social sciences.
When I became seriously interested in the Teaching of Siddhattha Gotama, the Buddha, there were a few notions in common between the Teachings of the ancient sage and the assertions of the modern biologist--the inexistence of metaphysical essences in living beings, the purposelessness of life as a phenomenon, the "undivine" nature of morality--that I decided to read once more The Selfish Gene. In a material universe, how or where does Buddhist reincarnation fit with Dawkins's biology? Here I have my own interpretation (which the bright English scientist most probably does not share). Each gen or, better said, the design in it coded, is eternal. Says Dawkins: "Each gen leaps from body to body in its own way and for its own ends, abandoning a succession of mortal bodies before they sink in senility and death. The genes are the immortals, or rather, they are defined as genetic entities that come close to deserving the title". So, the much talked reincarnation or rebirth of some Eastern religions could be well assimilated to body-to-body transmission of genetic information, instead of some kind of mysterious energy or metaphysical essence. Enough of that! My biological interpretation of Buddhist reincarnation does not add a bit to the wonder of this book. The Selfish Gene is just superb.

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Genes For Selfishness Discovered!

This is THE book on evolution: Richard Dawkins changed the way I look at biology as a whole way more than Gregor Mendel or Charles Darwin ever could...basically it discredits population (or individual) selection in favor of genetic selection, which he definitively supports using examples such as altruism, parasitism, symbiotism, and many others.

The Selfish Gene and its Philosophy

The Selfish Gene was truly an amazing book. Upon reading it, I cannot help but view the world in an entirely new light, one that is at once unsettling and intriguing. Author Richard Dawkins is quite effective at communicating his opinions to readers in a clear and provoking manner, interspersing short anecdotes in his discussions to further illustrate his ideas. Dawkins is clever in that his work can be read by both the scientist and the layman with great fervor. I, myself, found my eyes hooked onto its pages for hours at a time. From the very first page, one is addicted; these self-replicators are mindless congregations of matter that have been able to construct "gigantic lumbering robots" within which entire colonies of themselves exist, sealed off from the outside world (p. 19). Their communication with their host is limited, instead opting to deal with their creation through indirect and oftentimes torturous manipulation. It is mind-boggling to accept that these replicators are none other than DNA, and we are merely their "survival machines" (p. 20). I found it most interesting to see Dawkins' arguments from a philosophical standpoint; how have we as survival machines lost the ability to recognize that we are not one separate entity? Why do we think and feel as "I" and not "we"? Dawkins provides an explanation and it is simply that selection has favored genes that promote cooperation with others. This has happened to such an extent that the communal nature of a colony of identical genes is for all intensive purposes unrecognizable. Evolution has seemed to favor a survival machine having the ability of subjective consciousness. This certainly brings us to the paradox of what our individual consciousness entails--what our lives truly mean. As Dawkins so beautifully ponders, "...perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself" (p. 59). Returning to the topic at hand, what makes The Selfish Gene so remarkable is that presenting its heavily scientific concepts is prose that is almost lyrical in nature. Indeed, this is where the magic of the book grasps the reader like a clenched fist. Instead of describing the movement of cistrons from one generation to the next by describing how the chromosomes align on the metaphase plate, and how chiasmata form, Dawkins chooses a much more romantic route: "As the cistrons leave one body and enter the next, as they board sperm or egg for the journey into the next generation, they are likely to find that the little vessel contains their close neighbors of the previous voyage, old shipmates with whom they sailed on the long odyssey from the bodies of distant ancestors. Neighboring cistrons on the same chromosome form a tightly-knit troupe of traveling companions who seldom fail to get on board the same vessel..." (p. 33). That is the magic that is The Selfish Gene.

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