The Selfish Gene

Listed as number 10 on The Guardian’s “100 best nonfiction books of all time”, Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene explores a “gene’s-eye view of evolution” in a re-imagining of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. He explains his thesis concisely in the first chapter:“I shall argue that the fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene, the unit of heredity. To some biologists this may sound at first like an extreme view. I hope when they see in what sense I mean it they will agree that it is, in substance, orthodox, even if it is expressed in an unfamiliar way.”This book is also the origin of our current English word meme, for better or for worse. While I typically use “meme” to refer to image files shared on social media platforms, usually with text typed over the image, the actual word refers to: “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture”. Not every common word in our tongue has a definite point of origin, so it’s a minor pleasure of mine to read a book that is known to have originated a new word. (My first experience with this was reading Isaac Asimov’s short stories that contained the first usages of the word “robotics”.)What I Liked Least About ItMy primary difficulty with this book was not a fault of the author, but rather my own lack of scientific knowledge, especially in the field of biology. Consider that my high school biology course was taught by an elderly Christian woman who stated early that she wouldn’t teach evolution because she didn’t believe in it, and my college biology course was taught by a licensed minister in a denomination that denies evolution’s existence. So I knew next-to-nothing about evolution until the past few years when I began to read about it in earnest. Many of the concepts Dawkins uses in this book leapt over my head at first, and some required multiple re-readings of many sentences and paragraphs.However, Dawkins’ writing style is clear, and most terms are explained as he introduces them.Another downside was the placement of the footnotes, which might have been the fault of the publisher rather than the author. These notes were added in a later edition, marked in the original text with asterisks, and found in the back of the book. Most of them dealt with new information that had arisen since the original publication and so were enlightening and helpful, but their placement in the back of the book means the reader regularly has to flip to the back to find the note that accompanies the just-found asterisk. I would have greatly preferred to find the notes at the bottom of each applicable page. (I do understand the arguments against such a placement, especially since a few of the notes were lengthy.)What I Liked Most About ItDespite regular accusations from the anti-science crowd that “science is a religion” or that evolution is a matter of “faith”, I found no leaps of faith or baseless assertions in this book (or in any other science-related book I’ve read recently). Where something is unknown, the author said it’s unknown. If something is assumed, he said it is assumed, and explained why it’s assumed. For example:“The account of the origin of life that I shall give is necessarily speculative; by definition, nobody was around to see what happened... We do not know what chemical raw materials were abundant on earth before the coming of life, but among the plausible possibilities are water, carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia...”This kind of language is exactly why I like science. It uses terms like “as far as we know”, “to the best of our knowledge”, “recent studies have shown”, “with a few exceptions, which I will mention below”, and so on. When contrasted with the firm language of religion (“absolute”, “always”, and “every”), it shows that science is a quest for knowledge rather than an assertion of it. Science tends to recognize what it doesn’t yet know; in fact, what isn’t known is the very reason for the existence of science.I also liked the ideas presented, because they make sense, intuitively, given the knowledge of genetics and DNA that science has uncovered. The idea that natural selection works on genes — rather than individuals, groups, or species — is logically sound.“Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever.”The idea that individuals are complex “survival machines” built by genes to ensure future replication is powerful and humbling, yet surprisingly difficult to dispute. It does what a good scientific theory should; it explains observed phenomenon.“Different sorts of survival machine appear very varied on the outside and in their internal organs. An octopus is nothing like a mouse, and both are quite different from an oak tree. Yet in their fundamental chemistry they are rather uniform, and, in particular, the replicators that they bear, the genes, are basically the same kind of molecule in all of us — from bacteria to elephants. We are all survival machines for the same kind of replicator — molecules called DNA — but there are many different ways of making a living in the world, and the replicators have built a vast range of machines to exploit them. A monkey is a survival machine that preserves genes up trees, a fish is a machine that preserves genes in the water; there is even a small worm that preserves genes in German beer mats. DNA works in mysterious ways.”It Should Be NotedThe theory proposed, described, and defended by Dawkins in this book is not entirely his own, as he hurries to mention in his book. The gene-centered view of evolution first began to arise not long after DNA was first correctly described in the late 1950s, and was pioneered by scientists George C. Williams and John Maynard Smith in the 1960s. But, as Robert Trivers (another scientist) wrote in the forward to The Selfish Gene, it was Dawkins’ book that “for the first time... presented [this theory] in a simple and popular form”.This idea is also not without its detractors. There are notable scientists who disagree with the central tenets of Dawkins’ views, among them famed paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (now deceased) — one of two men responsible for the punctuated equilibrium theory. Gould believed natural selection worked on several levels, but learned toward the species as being the fundamental unit of selection. He also argued against the acceptance of the idea that many behaviors are genetically determined.My own view (which is relevant here, since this is my book review) is that they’re probably both right. My view doesn’t arise from any scientific knowledge — my lack of which I have already mentioned — but purely from my observational experience that two-sided arguments are often artificial, that both sides often contain enough truth to be valid. It would surprise me if scientists as a whole someday determined that natural selection only works on the genetic level or only worked at the species level (or only at any other level: group-selection, kin-selection, individual selection, etc.) While one level or another might turn out to be more important than the others (and that most important level could easily turn out to be the genetic level), it stands to reason that the other levels carry weight as well.Dawkins and Gould are probably both right on the determinism argument as well. Based on my own experiences with addictive behavior (not to mention many studies published in the decades since Gould and Dawkins disagreed) shows that genetic determinism must play at least some part in many behaviors. At least, I am currently convinced of this. But also clear is that behavior is often influenced by our views and beliefs, and our views and beliefs are changeable, so it stands to reason that some of our behavior is not genetically determined. (I am using “reason” here in the sense of “common sense”, which I recognize is often shown to be incorrect; intuition is not always right — take for example that it’s “common sense” that the Sun moves while the Earth does not, something that was eventually disproved.)ConclusionI would recommend this book to anyone interested in science in general, though I would advise first building a rudimentary knowledge of biology and evolutionary theory. As already mentioned, my own shortcomings in these areas made it difficult to understand parts of this book.

This is Dawkins' famed seminal work on his view of evolution written in the 70s. It has been recognised as a classic of modern scientific writing. It is also where he presented his view of natural selection via individual gene. In the first  chapter, he already clearly stated his unique view in contrast to selection based on group or the larger category of species which is a more conventional view at the time. Chapter two on replicators and chapter three on the immortal gene are the key chapters by which Dawkins explains the nature of a gene as a replicator exhibiting selfish behaviour in evolution. The primeval soup environment had molecules that are replicatators, molecules that are with longevity and/or capacity to replicate themselves with high longevity/fecundity/copying-fidelity. The gene made of replicating DNA molecules are the basic unit of evolution responding to natural selection pressure. A gene's replicating feature makes it possibly "immortal", for it can survive for a million years though many don't make it past the first generation. Dawkins characterises the gene as a survival machine with the capacity to learn from the environment in order to respond  to  and make predictions to its various changing parameters of the environment. Its learning capacity helps it to replicate and hence survive in the environment. Learning, adapt and replicate are ways a gene respond to selection pressure.The rest of the books reveals how the gene exhibits certain behaviours in the evolutionary process.  In the area of aggression, Dawkins offers the surprising analysis that aggression is not necessarily the best way to survive in the evolutionary process.  He invokes Maynard Smith notion of "evolutionary stable strategy" (ESS) throughout the book. It is a survival strategy adopted by most members of a population that cannot be bettered by an alternative strategy. The genes select a unique mixture of hawks and doves that is the best ESS for the population to survive, and not necessarily hawkish blind aggression survives better.On the process between generations, the genes enable the parents to choose a balance between reproduction and rearing in a way that best utilizes parental resources. Best replicating strategy ESS is not a blind maximal reproduction. Another interesting observation by Dawkins is parent/child  relationship being as crucial as siblings relationship in terms of gene replication. Children would not blindly hoard food that risks the balance of his own survival and siblings survival. The gene enables the right balance.On the battle of the sexes, each sex selects the best way to replicate its own genes as reflected in even the mate selection criteria. Dawkins highlighted two selection criteria, the domestic bliss criterion according to which the female selects a male based on domesticity and fidelity to invest in her offsprings, and the he-man criterion which is based on males with best quality genes to sire their offspring. For males, promiscuity with multiple partners seems to be the best way of replicating.With regard to the dynamics between species, it is seen in nature that different species help each other for mutual reproductive benefits forming symbiotic relationships. An example is that aphids suck nutrients out of plants for ants while ants offer sanctuary to protect them from natural enemy. Dawkins mentioned also mitochondria which provides energy for human gene is bacteria in origin which cooperates with our cells making human beings a symbiotic colony of genes.Throughout this whole work, the selfishness of a gene is actually metaphorically used because selfishness only depicts the natural behaviour of gene replication by responding to selection pressure. Any apparent calculation of strategy actually  takes place at a genetic level, not consciously decided at an agent level of the organism. Despite this notion, Dawkins suggests humans are different than other species in that it uses "memes" to transmit culture. Memes are means of cultural transmission. Examples are ideas, tunes, fashions, and artefacts. They replicate like genes jumping from body to body by humans imitating them from human to human  for transmission.  Dawkins also suggests that genes and memes can work against each other. Another thing that makes humans different from other organisms  is the capacity for conscious foresight to work against selfish genes that have no foresight. It is conceivable that humans can work against their own genes interest.  But that would imply humans possessing a free agent capacity over and above his own genetic  makeup. I don't know if Dawkins would allow such a paradox but it is conceivable not all of human features are made for genetic replication.This work provides an impressive wealth of insights of how the gene function as a unit of survival machine in evolution. Just like any good books in biology, anecdotal examples from nature are indispensable and Dawkins does not disappoint. Some of my favourite examples are cuckoos that lay eggs in other species nests to spread their species and lessen its own parental investment, and the ruthlessness of hatched honey guides that would smash the eggs of their foster family eggs making it the only offspring of their parents. Baby swallows push other eggs out of the nest after hatching.In the 40th anniversary edition, the last chapter is just a summary of his next work The Extended Phenotype which he suggest the reader to skip and go on to that book and a 40th anniversary epilogue which is a good and updated summary of his book

Gran empaque, muy bien cuidado y un gran libro. Siempre recomendando

Aprendi sobre comportamento animal e humano

Dawkins is amazing. His arguments are well thought out and delivered and his writing style and pace is perfect.Can highly recommend this or any of Richard Dawkins books

Llevaba tiempo queriendo leer este libro porque había visto buenas referencias y decidí coger está edición para Kindle. La edición es buena, incorpora un montón de notas del propio autor cuando revisó el texto original para la edición aniversario. Muy recomendable.