Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "ou Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enor...
| Title | : | The Selfish Gene |
| Author | : | Richard Dawkins |
| Rating | : | |
| Genres | : | Science |
| ISBN | : | The Selfish Gene ISBN |
| Edition Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 360 pages pages |
The Selfish Gene Reviews
Writing lucidly about science for a lay audience while remaining scientifically rigorous is not easy, and Dawkins does a tremendous job as he examines evolution from the point of view of the gene rather than the organism. I found this book to contain a number of "aha" mom...
I read the 30th anniversary edition of this book--it is a true "classic". I note that there are over 48,000 ratings and 1,400 reviews of this book on Goodreads! Richard Dawkins put an entirely original slant on Darwin's theory of natural selection. The book has turned pe...
listen to this story. 10 people in a private room with a big deal/money insurance company eating expensive steaks and drinking expensive wine. one guy says to the effect: "simple starches convert almost instantly to sugar, sugar actually makes you more hungry." so i say t...
Didactic, patronizing, condescending and arguably neo-intellectual twaddle. I do not believe in a God, certainly not any God that's been conceived by man, but I also believe Richard Dawkins is a self-satisfied thought-Nazi who is as fundamental in his view of religion as any right...
I read this book when I was a student and studying genetics at the time. This helped a lot, it made an awful lot more sense than what I was learning and I have Professor Dawkins to thank for making me look like a genius in a lecture and completely getting my head round an essay. I a...
I read this years ago.. It was the first book I read with The Bay Area Book club..(the local book club I'm still in. I don't think I was a member of Goodreads yet. I thought this book was a little more 'textbook' in sections than I would have preferred .. At t...
This is the thirty year anniversary edition of the book (2006 rather than 1976) so it contains a lot of clarifications where he found there were misunderstandings. It also contains some corrections where he decided that he was either wrong or off target. He also mentions areas where ot...
One of the most important things I took from The Selfish Gene is an idea that I find a bit difficult to put into words. Richard Dawkins is really good at crafting metaphors to describe scientific principles that on their own may be not be so interesting, or may be stubbornly inaccess...
Although I consider myself a Jesus-loving, god-fearing, creationist, I simply LOVE reading about evolution. I'm not sure what it is, but I find the whole concept, when explained by a lucid and accessible author, fascinating. And Dawkins is nothing if not lucid and accessible. He p...
If you are bored look up the Community Reviews, sort by 1-star. They are very entertaining. One of them as a uni professor advising a student to burn down the book store where they bought this book. Then we have the creationists, then the person who thinks it is all a capitalist manife...
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 ...
- What some people seem to find hard to understand is that there's a part of you, in fact the most important part, that's immaterial and immortal. Your body is really no more than a temporary shell for the immortal part, and houses it for a little while until it dies. The...
Although a lot has changed in social biology and ethology since this book was originally published in 1976, ?The Selfish Gene? brought me numerous insights which made my respect for Dawkins grow immensely. I?ll explain why. The book can be considered today almost out of date, ...
Richard Dawkin's 1976 classic game changer The Selfish Gene contains information I still didn't know, almost 40 years later. His basic idea is that the essential unit of life is the gene; our bodies are just big fleshy protection robots for the gene. Dawkins says I'm a t...
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 awe...
Finally, and after an excessive period of time, the main cause of which was college overwhelming demands, I managed to read and finish, from cover to cover, the book that launched the fame of the most distinguished evolutionary biologist in the world (Richard Dawkins): The Selfish Gene...
Any reader of fiction understands the importance of narrative point of view. Influential evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins adopts that idea here. The point of view is that of the gene. His ?selfish gene? is a metaphor, an anthropomorphic representation of a replicating sequenc...
I didn't find this one nearly as interesting or as fun as The God Delusion. At times, reading it felt like a homework assignment, but for that I will have to fault my own intellectual shortcomings, and NOT Dawkins' logic or writing ability. After all, I'm not about t...
On 27 December 1831, a young naturalist by the name of Charles Robert Darwin set upon a voyage of discovery on the HMS Beagle which was to last five years and take him all over the globe. He came back with a lot of specimens, copious scientific notes and an explosive theory which was t...
I asked Twitter for reading recommendations just before Christmas and one of them was this book. It's so outside my comfort zone (a book about genetics? Are you MAD?), I just went for it. And I am very glad I did. That's the great thing about Kindles. You can do mad stuff ...
The Selfish Gene is still widely read 40 years after publication, remarkable for a science book, and it continues to cause controversy. In straightforward language Dawkins offers theories for the beginning of life, evolution, sexual differentiation and altruism in human behavior. He ta...
One of the best books ever written :) ?We are survival machines ? robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.? ...
When I read this a couple of years ago, I loved it. I've also been at a loss to see why people had troubles liking Richard Dawkins, sure he was harsh sometimes in debates, but mostly I found him intellectually honest. It's higly ironic that not even a week after I was defe...
I love reading books that challenge my worldview and compel me to change it. This book is an excellent work on Evolutionary biology, Genes, Behavioral biology and Natural selection, among many other fascinating topics. Dawkins is succinct, eloquent and a very intelligent tutor. He uses...
This book changed how I see the world. I wish I could buy a copy and give it to everyone around me. ...
Reading this book was like meeting with a person about whom you have heard a lot, who has some kind of legendary status, and overall so well-acclaimed that you cannot resist the temptation to meet the person. Another thing you have heard is that the person is so simple, down to ear...
? There are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the galaxy.? Sometimes science books can become unintentionally funny: ?What is the good of sex? This is an extremely difficult question for the evolutionist to answer. Most serious attempts to a...
3 stars and in this book, this concept is explained through the perspective of genes. Dawkins manages to present complicated topics like cell division, probability, and animal behaviours through the "eyes" of the gene which will use its survival machine (the organism) to...
This book is pretty good! Professor Richard Dawkins has narrated this topic on life and evolution in a very interesting way. A must read - all about The Immortal Gene and The Immortal Replicator! "Death, of course, is not a failure. Death is normal. Death may be the enemy, b...
The Selfish Gene (1976) is exactly how I prefer my non-fiction science books to be written. Richard Dawkins is clear, stays on topic, and explains the necessary details and complexities using simple everyday life examples. Dawkins, is entertaining, and gives you a hand when you get los...
