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 Absolutely Ingenious. January 3, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is Professor Dawkins' finest piece of work. Not only does he provide his own knowledge and ingenious thinking, but he also ties together the works of Darwin, Hamilton, Fisher, Trivers, and many other great revolutionary Evolutionary Biologists. As a Geneticist, I have studied many of the phenomena that Dawkins discusses, and it is amazing that science has uncovered many of them as late as 30 years after the first publication of this great book.
It is not just Genetics which has had components perfectly explained by this text, but also many other branches of Evolutionary Biology, such as Ethology and Molecular Evolution. A wonderful read, explained so simply and eloquently by arguably the world's greatest Popular Science writer; a book that Carl Sagan himself would have been proud of writing.
Dobzhansky once famously and correctly stated that 'Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of Evolution' ; I would go one step further, and state that 'Nothing in Evolution makes sense except in the light of Gene Selection'. Once one has read this book fully, and understood it properly, this statement can be fully appreciated.
I think Dawkins is wrong in his central argument. Here's why: December 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The first thing I want to say is how much respect I have for Richard Dawkins as a scientist, as a teacher, as a writer of fascinating prose, and as a person. He is a brilliant and courageous man who works hard to bring his knowledge and insights to all of us. For the record I have read six of his books and reviewed four of them. They are:
The God Delusion (2006)
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (2004)
A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love (2003)
The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (1982; 1999)
The second thing I want to say is that The Selfish Gene is one of the landmark science books of the 20th century, and so I am pleased to see this 30th Anniversary Edition (from 2006) with a new introduction by Dawkins and some new footnotes.
Rather than review the book as a whole, however, as has been done many times, in this review I want to concentrate on the central issue of the book, namely the question of "at what level does natural selection work?"
Dawkins believes that the environment selects certain genes, or more properly speaking, suites of genes and therefore operates primarily at the level of the gene. I disagree and believe this is like saying that the public selects certain letters, or words, or sentences of words when buying a book. The words (or more properly the ideas represented by the words) are the reason the public selects a book, but what the public selects is nonetheless the book. Genes are like ideas in books. Ideas must appear in some medium, even if it is just word of mouth. Genes must appear in organisms, which are the products of both the genetic instructions and the environment in which they develop. Consequently genes help to produce individuals (or in the case of social insects, a group of individuals that can be seen as a single organism). Dawkins calls these individuals "survival machines." In turn the environment selects certain survival machines that contain certain genes.
Another way of expressing this is to say that the environment selects genes by proxy, that is, through the medium of the individual phenotype. The environment cannot directly affect the genes since the genes are safely encapsulated within the survival machine which does not in any Lamackian way communicate with them. The exception is when an electromagnetic particle hits the code and alters it, creating a mutation. The environment does not act on that altered code; instead it acts upon the individual that is born to carry that altered code or lack thereof.
The individual gene itself (if we can speak of such a thing which is just a section of code) doesn't work in isolation. It is always allied for better or for worse with other sections of code. Certain sections of code are reproduced again and again because they are handy or work well with other sections of code in a way that allows the survival machine to reproduce and its offspring to reproduce. But the environment cannot select certain selections of code. It can only select the individual containing that code (and a lot of other code besides). In fact, it cannot just select the individual, it must select its possible mates and even much of its environment as well, such as the plants and animals it uses for food and shelter. To speak of selecting genes or even individual organisms is just a convenient way of talking.
What is really selected is a group of organisms of some kind. Some consider an important group selected by the environment to be the species or the ecology. Giving a large enough perspective, I would go so far as to say (going beyond Lovecock and Gaia) that natural selection operates on the level of life itself.
Another point is that the genes never reproduce themselves by themselves. Nothing in this world that I know of actually reproduces itself by itself, except dividing cells, and they do this only most of the time. As is now known, occasionally bacteria trade genes with other bacteria and thereby reproduce not quite exact copies of themselves. A strand of DNA is replicated with the help of the machinery of the cell. Viruses need cells to replicate themselves. Anything that was one hundred percent effective in making exact copies of itself would not undergo Darwinian evolution and would in fact have died out long ago. The dreaded grey goo of nanobots replicating until they cover the earth is still just a fantasy of science fiction.
The problem with the current understanding of evolution and natural selection is the problem of not seeing that everything is connected. Any place we draw a boundary is artificial or arbitrary. Even at the skin. Franklin M. Harold, in his book, The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life (2001) writes, "Organisms process matter and energy as well as information; each represents a dynamic node in a whirlpool of several currents, and self-reproduction is a property of the collective, not of genes.... DNA is a peculiar sort of software, that can only be correctly interpreted by its own unique hardware....sending aliens the genome of a cat is no substitute for sending the cat itself--complete with mice." (op cit., p. 221)
For those of you who have read Dawkins' original edition from 1976, this edition is still to be recommended, particularly for the updated bibliography and for the 66 pages of endnotes where Dawkins graciously admits errors and points to new discoveries, most interestingly that of Zahavi's "handicap principle" which goes a long ways toward explaining some "altruistic" behavior. See my Amazon review of The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle (1997) by Amotz and Avishag Zahavi.
 Turns life inside out October 28, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The author writes about living things as if the gene is the animal and the animal is simply a seed for the gene. He basically turns life inside out. It's a powerful mind tool to get a different perspective on life but don't get too carried away with the idea. The whole theory of evolution is valuable in understanding the world but like a lot of science it starts to become too difficult to use. So in conclusion I don't believe that the author has discovered the secret of life, he just has another way of looking at things that you may find useful. It should be one of the books you have read.
 jean genie October 5, 2008
2 out of 13 found this review helpful
Dawkins is excellent while he sticks to biology
however he may have lost the plot in the last chapter
as he has in thinking promoting science involves attacking
religion
If an evangalist is someone who does not leave people to work
it out for themselves but pushes his point of view Dawkins is one
Nutty Baptists and Dawkins looked similar on channel 4 for example
ie they both spin world events too far to promote a point of view
 Imaginative guessing September 13, 2008
2 out of 27 found this review helpful
I have attempted to read Dawkins's books on a few occasions but seldom get beyond the first 100 pages. I simply find his style of writing boring and his theories pure imaginative guesswork; I cannot take this author's ideas onboard yet biology fascinates me and especially that of epigenetics which seems to disprove all that this author advocates. I suspect that there is a snobbery value to those who support him. Irrespective of his academic standing I cannot avoid regarding the author as an impostor as I constantly want to wage war with his views. Admittedly, he comes across publicly as a very plausible academic but, this does not sway me.
PS (14/12/08) How interesting that a candid opinion should upset so many; one wonders why?
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