Book review: Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene
By Laure-Anne Visele, written Nov 2012.
This article is part of my collection of book reviews.
I review every book that has increased my understanding of dogs. Come to think of it, I also review the books that have decreased my understanding: you’ll also find a couple of negative reviews. No point in letting you buy the duds.
AUTHOR: Richard Dawkins
PUBLISHING YEAR: 1976 (original), 1989 (my edition)
SUMMARY: Brick-sized treatise on the mechanics of genes on population dynamics and trait expression – in (nearly) everyday language.
REVIEW: A classic must-read if you’re remotely interested in biology –> zoology –> understanding dog’s genes.
Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist with out-of-this-world theoretical insight into anything and everything he puts his mind to.
In this book, he meshes the works of Darwin (evolution), Trivers (game theory), and Mendel (genetics) into an intuitively appealing and internally consistent model to expose the mechanics of genetic inheritance.
He does away not only with the two ugly, but classic, misconceptions:
- Teleology –the idea that populations/organisms/genes consciously strive for success; and
- Group selection –the idea that whole groups of animals, like an entire species, strive for common success.
The crux of the book is this: Dawkins proposes a daring conceptual shift from the entire organism to the individual gene as the fundamental unit of hereditary selection.
He briefly introduces (re-introduces if you’re a biologist) the nitty-gritty of molecular genetics, but quickly moves on to illustrating his points with one fascinating evolutionary example after another.
One of our lecturers warned a room full of neural scientists, behavioural psychologists and veterinary doctors that it would be a tough read for most of us. I can’t decide whether she’s right, as my background is Zoology (so slap in the middle of his subject matter). From what I recall, though, I found it reasonably jargon-free. In terms of complexity, he does go off onto mindbogglingly sophisticated flights of theory — with a couple of beautiful chapters on game theory to name but one topic.
So fasten your seat belt, because, intellectually, this is a Ferrari of a book. But if you’re up for the challenge, it will (at worst) stop you from blurting genetic stupidities, and (at best) revolutionarize your understanding of life, the universe and everything.
This book is a all-out classic, and it is one of the must-have intellectual gems of the twentieth century. Go on. Try it.
Your comments
Nothing makes my day more than that sweet “Ping! You have a comment”. So go on, share your thoughts.
Have you read it? Did you like it? What did you think? Would you recommend other similar books?
Further reading
Dogs and society
- Hot dogs – Quick poll about hotly debated dog issues (e.g. leash/no leash, treat/no treat, etc.)
- Dogs, my philosophical position – My position on debated dog issues
- Does your large dog scare people? – Article about more intimidating dog breeds
Dog training and behaviour
- Separation anxiety – a treatment protocol
- Treating dog-dog aggression – some advice
- The perfect recall – fool-proof guide to getting your dog to come back when called
