Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1976.
Reason read: every January people make resolutions all about bettering themselves. It’s all about them. In honor of those “it’s all about me” resolutions I am reading a book about being selfish and the explanation for why.
Richard Dawkins wants you to ignore the word selfish in his book’s title and concentrate more on the word gene. He confessed that “misunderstandings of Darwinism” are what originally “provoked” him to write The Selfish Gene. [Point of view: At the time of publication he was a professor at Oxford University and considered The Selfish Gene a “new” way of looking at ourselves. Keep in mind Dawkins wrote The Selfish Gene fifty years ago.] Like a chef laying out a beautifully set table before his meal, Dawkins takes care to define the words selfish and altruistic. He wants to make sure you are grounded in the facts he is about to present before you. He is careful to explain how words get lost in translation. For example, take the Septuagint – Hebrew for young woman into Greek for virgin and what transpires is the virgin giving birth to a holy son.
Dawkins repeatedly uses the word “simplified” to assure his readers that he has dumbed down his scientific subject matter as much as he could without turning The Selfish Gene into a See Jane Run book for toddlers. He uses humor and folksy language to further put his reader at ease. Fear not! This is a good book.
Quote to quote, “For instance a ion wants to eat an antelope’s body, but the antelope has very different plans for its body” (p 89).
Author fact: Dawkins published seven books after The Selfish Gene. I am reading one more, The Blind Watchmaker. At the time of publication, Dawkins was working on the computer simulation of cricket song to determine the basis of female attraction.
Book trivia: as an aside, Dawkins tells a story about the underground “parasol” ants of South America. They live in colonies of over two million and live deep underground.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Genuine Genes” (p 96).
~*LunaSea*~ 