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The selfish gene is one of the few books if you read it with an enquiring mind it will change you forever. I first read it 30 years ago now (amazing how time fl

The selfish gene is one of the few books if you read it with an enquiring mind it will change you forever. I first read it 30 years ago now (amazing how time flies) and it still affects the way I see the world.

mindcrime 11y ago
It definitely had an effect on me. To elaborate... prior to reading TSG, I thought of myself as an atheist, but I held open a (very) small amount of willingness to consider the idea of some sort of creator, mainly because I'd not heard a convincing counter to the "irreducible complexity" idea. After reading TSG, I felt convinced that there is a reasonable way for, say, the eye, optic nerve, etc., to evolve, that doesn't require the entire thing to appear at once. Once I crossed that hurdle, I felt a lot more confident in publicly declaring myself an "atheist" instead of just saying "agnostic" which always felt like something of a weasel term. Of course, having grown up in the "Bible Belt" and having many family members who are devout Christians, this led to some interesting, erm, "discussions" over the years. I also appreciated TSG for introducing me to things like the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma and the works of Robert Axelrod, Robert Trivers, etc. and ideas like "kin altruism", "reciprocal altruism", etc. A lot of things make more sense after reading that book.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- lttlrck 11y ago
  Climbing Mount Improbable had much the same affect on me. However it is worth noting that Dawkins himself is not certain God does not exist. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Daw...
- lazyant 11y ago
  While philosophically or in theory agnosticism and atheism are separate things, I found personally in practice that they are pretty much equivalent.
emmelaich 11y ago
Same; it was utterly convincing and revolutionary for me. I'm still perplexed by those who saw it as an argument for selfishness. I watched a TV interview of Dawkins about 10 years back where one of the interviewer's first questions was along these lines. It must be so frustrating for him. Dawkins says he regrets the title, but perhaps the perceived controversy also helped its fame.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I tend to agree that the title helped drive the book’s success. Every time some idiot in the media confused the title of the book with the content more people read the book. I think if he had called the book the immortal gene it would not have got the same level of readership.
Outdoorsman 11y ago
Agreed...Certain brilliant works, read at just the right moment in our lives, align with our intuition, validates the information we've gathered and parsed to that point, and propels us forward with confidence... I read Edward O. Wilsons' "On Human Nature" the year it was published (1978)...I just happened to stumble upon it in a bookstore...a wonderful read which prompted me to wonder,"What other thinkers are out there that I don't know about?" This was two years after Dawkins published "The Selfish Gene"...I was unaware of the book, or Dawkins in general, for at least a decade...when I discovered it I devoured it... It had the effect of further cementing the philosophy of living my previous inquiries had led me to... I've discovered no benefit to putting a label on myself, whether that be atheist, agnostic, or theist...early on I discovered others held tightly to their views and were usually very unlikely to change them...discussions were interesting and invigorating, but ultimately fruitless... What I most appreciate about the efforts of Dawkins and Wilson is that they are quite serious thinkers...they encourage us to "go with the best available evidence"...there's no better advice... There's ample evidence that we humans are finite beings, and IMHO we don't much like the idea of that, i.e., we want answers as to why we exist at all...and we're often unwilling to embrace "the best available evidence"... Further, I think that those who cannot accept that we appear to be finite beings misunderstand the concept of "infinity"...it extends backwards, forwards, in any direction our human linguistic invention of the concept of "time" might include...infinity implies limitless possibilities... I'll continue to proceed with my life based on what "the best available evidence" suggests...if new and compelling evidence is uncovered I'm willing to turn on a dime...
tim333 11y ago
I found it slightly depressing. Dawkins is smart but a bit bleak and humorless. Give me a Feynman type any day. To take a memorable quote from the book: "We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes." It's not technically accurate. Genes are not selfish - they are inanimate chemicals and they don't do programming. Dawkins is obviously being poetic but you could write less bleak poetry. Some Feynman for comparison: "It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man [...] It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing — atoms with curiosity — that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders." Jollier and doesn't resort to anthropomorphising molecules.
- jameshart 11y ago
  Dawkins's style is more poetic. I don't think it's worse for it. In the Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins writes about a tree shedding its seeds to the wind, and he talks about it 'raining information'. That's an image that has stuck with me. His coining of the term 'meme' is precisely the same kind of metaphoric play.

mindcrime 11y ago

It definitely had an effect on me. To elaborate... prior to reading TSG, I thought of myself as an atheist, but I held open a (very) small amount of willingness to consider the idea of some sort of creator, mainly because I'd not heard a convincing counter to the "irreducible complexity" idea. After reading TSG, I felt convinced that there is a reasonable way for, say, the eye, optic nerve, etc., to evolve, that doesn't require the entire thing to appear at once. Once I crossed that hurdle, I felt a lot more confident in publicly declaring myself an "atheist" instead of just saying "agnostic" which always felt like something of a weasel term. Of course, having grown up in the "Bible Belt" and having many family members who are devout Christians, this led to some interesting, erm, "discussions" over the years. I also appreciated TSG for introducing me to things like the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma and the works of Robert Axelrod, Robert Trivers, etc. and ideas like "kin altruism", "reciprocal altruism", etc. A lot of things make more sense after reading that book.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
lttlrck 11y ago
Climbing Mount Improbable had much the same affect on me. However it is worth noting that Dawkins himself is not certain God does not exist. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Daw...
lazyant 11y ago
While philosophically or in theory agnosticism and atheism are separate things, I found personally in practice that they are pretty much equivalent.

emmelaich 11y ago

Same; it was utterly convincing and revolutionary for me. I'm still perplexed by those who saw it as an argument for selfishness. I watched a TV interview of Dawkins about 10 years back where one of the interviewer's first questions was along these lines. It must be so frustrating for him. Dawkins says he regrets the title, but perhaps the perceived controversy also helped its fame.

danieltillett 11y ago
I tend to agree that the title helped drive the book’s success. Every time some idiot in the media confused the title of the book with the content more people read the book. I think if he had called the book the immortal gene it would not have got the same level of readership.

Outdoorsman 11y ago

Agreed...Certain brilliant works, read at just the right moment in our lives, align with our intuition, validates the information we've gathered and parsed to that point, and propels us forward with confidence... I read Edward O. Wilsons' "On Human Nature" the year it was published (1978)...I just happened to stumble upon it in a bookstore...a wonderful read which prompted me to wonder,"What other thinkers are out there that I don't know about?" This was two years after Dawkins published "The Selfish Gene"...I was unaware of the book, or Dawkins in general, for at least a decade...when I discovered it I devoured it... It had the effect of further cementing the philosophy of living my previous inquiries had led me to... I've discovered no benefit to putting a label on myself, whether that be atheist, agnostic, or theist...early on I discovered others held tightly to their views and were usually very unlikely to change them...discussions were interesting and invigorating, but ultimately fruitless... What I most appreciate about the efforts of Dawkins and Wilson is that they are quite serious thinkers...they encourage us to "go with the best available evidence"...there's no better advice... There's ample evidence that we humans are finite beings, and IMHO we don't much like the idea of that, i.e., we want answers as to why we exist at all...and we're often unwilling to embrace "the best available evidence"... Further, I think that those who cannot accept that we appear to be finite beings misunderstand the concept of "infinity"...it extends backwards, forwards, in any direction our human linguistic invention of the concept of "time" might include...infinity implies limitless possibilities... I'll continue to proceed with my life based on what "the best available evidence" suggests...if new and compelling evidence is uncovered I'm willing to turn on a dime...

tim333 11y ago

I found it slightly depressing. Dawkins is smart but a bit bleak and humorless. Give me a Feynman type any day. To take a memorable quote from the book: "We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes." It's not technically accurate. Genes are not selfish - they are inanimate chemicals and they don't do programming. Dawkins is obviously being poetic but you could write less bleak poetry. Some Feynman for comparison: "It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man [...] It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing — atoms with curiosity — that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders." Jollier and doesn't resort to anthropomorphising molecules.

jameshart 11y ago
Dawkins's style is more poetic. I don't think it's worse for it. In the Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins writes about a tree shedding its seeds to the wind, and he talks about it 'raining information'. That's an image that has stuck with me. His coining of the term 'meme' is precisely the same kind of metaphoric play.