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The Selfish Gene by Dawkins. The gene is the unit of replication, and this affects every process in this universe.

robterrell 8y ago
That book also gave us the term "meme" which, in its original form, is way more interesting than "animated GIFs spread on social media."
- phowon 8y ago
  It really is underappreciated how much 4chan has shaped Internet, and now mainstream, culture.
- 3chelon 8y ago
  It's such a weird twist of irony that someone like Dawkins invented a term that has been so abused and deformed beyond all recognition. As expected, he hates what it's become; but it has truly evolved, beyond his control, so there's a wonderful truth there!
fingerlocks 8y ago
Seconded. This is the only book I’ve read that truly “changed” the way I think (excluding school textbooks) in a fundamental way. It was like discovering a new spacial dimension orthogonal to the existing 3. Like, how did I even live before this book?
pesfandiar 8y ago
I enjoyed that and some of his other books, but it was The God Delusion that did it for me. Having been born in a religious society makes it hard to break out of needing to assume there is a god, but that book could give people enough explanation to drop that assumption.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  I always think it's really interesting how our upbringings shape us. I'd never even heard of god until I was 4, when I must have heard the word mentioned, asked my dad what it mean, and it was explained to me as a thing up in the sky that some people believe in.
fermienrico 8y ago
This book has had a monumental, life altering perspective shift in everyone I know that have read it. Warning: If you go over the fence, there is no returning back. Your thought process will change forever (for the good in my view).
stallmanifold 8y ago
I also recommend Dawkins' follow-up book, "The Extended Phenotype." Dawkins' most popular writing may be on atheism and the critique of religion, but I think his greatest contributions were really found in this book plus The Selfish Gene. Though as a caveat, "The Extended Phenotype" requires some more technical sophistication in evolutionary biology than Selfish Gene.
onychomys 8y ago
Note, of course, that he was wrong about the gene being the unit of selection. Selection happens at an organismal level. As we've come to understand the interconnectedness of the genome, this has become even more clear. Dawkins' ideas generated a lot of debate among evolutionary biologists in the 1980s, but have largely fallen out of favor. They're just too simplistic to reflect reality.
- nabnob 8y ago
  I thought the modern view of natural selection is that it occurs at multiple levels - gene, individual organism, group selection, etc.
  - gagagababa 8y ago
    Indeed, it is.
  - onychomys 8y ago
    There's evidence that selection happens at the organismal level (duh) and at the species level, but nothing else. There's some weak evidence that it can happen at levels above species (genus, family, etc), but it's not super well supported. The question of population-level selection (what you've called group selection) is more contentious, although it shouldn't be. The grandpa of our field, E.O. Wilson, whom we all adore and wish we could constantly hug, loves the idea. Sadly, evidence doesn't love it. Like, there's basically none. There's no real theoretical underpinnings that would make it possible, either, because there's just too much gene flow between demes (...partially isolated breeding populations) to allow selection to happen.
- gagagababa 8y ago
  Glad that somebody pointed that out. IMO, if somebody wants to get a quick overview of genetics, their time would be much better spent watching lectures 4-7 from Sapolsky's Human Behavioural Biology lectures [1]. In those 4 lectures Sapolsky's explores contradicting theories about (among other things) the unit of selection and gradualism. Highly recommend the whole series. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dRXA1_e30o&list=PL150326949691B199&index=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dRXA1_e30o&list=PL150326949...
obelos 8y ago
Dawkins is amazingly lucid when he sticks to topics he knows very well. “The Selfish Gene” and “The Extended Phenotype” were world altering for me. Like integral calculus, I rarely have cause to apply the concept in the domain in which it was described, but the understanding that his conveyance of the material shaped in me is something I feel in my thinking every day, more than two decades later. “The Mating Mind” by Geoffrey Miller (another biologist who would do the world a favor by sticking to his domain of expertise) came to me more recently but has left a similar impression. It impeccably elaborates upon the power of sexual selection and how it intertwines with natural selection.
scottlocklin 8y ago
Yeah, that was a biggie for me, until I read "Darwinian Fairytales" by David Stove. Everyone who has read Dawkins needs to have a look at this. A philosopher has a look at what Dawkins actually says and realizes it is basically medieval demonology dressed up in pseudoscientific verbiage.
- FabHK 8y ago
  Hmm, I'll check that Darwinian Fairytales out. However, I must say, I've read Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments against Evolutionary Psychology, to see what critics of Dawkins and evolutionary psychology had to say, and found it rather poor. So, for now, my considered view is that Dawkins has many interesting insightful things to say, while his critics are often attacking straw men.
- YouAreGreat 8y ago
  > "Darwinian Fairytales" by David Stove The search engine coughed up a PDF. I randomly opened it (p. 173) and read up to this author-provided "TL;DR" on p.176: The main reason, however, for thinking that sociobiology is false, is the simple one I gave at the beginning: that it is obvious that human beings are the most intelligent and capable things on earth. But genes are not human. Therefore (etc.). Uhhhm. Really?
  - namarie 8y ago
    Well, it might make more sense in context. You can't litterally read a random sentence on a random page of a book and expect to have a reasonable opinion on its quality.
3chelon 8y ago
Seconded. I actually read "The Blind Watchmaker" first and that had just as big an impact on me. As someone else said, no going back after reading it. It also gave me the confidence to realise I was actually an atheist, not an apologetic agnostic!
suyash 8y ago
What's the big deal and why are so many people raving about this book? Can someone summarize the key points in a paragraph or two?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- lelima 8y ago
  just go for it man, yolo. tldr: Talk about how genes influence organism, is like reading animal planet

That book also gave us the term "meme" which, in its original form, is way more interesting than "animated GIFs spread on social media."

phowon 8y ago
It really is underappreciated how much 4chan has shaped Internet, and now mainstream, culture.
3chelon 8y ago
It's such a weird twist of irony that someone like Dawkins invented a term that has been so abused and deformed beyond all recognition. As expected, he hates what it's become; but it has truly evolved, beyond his control, so there's a wonderful truth there!

fingerlocks 8y ago

Seconded. This is the only book I’ve read that truly “changed” the way I think (excluding school textbooks) in a fundamental way. It was like discovering a new spacial dimension orthogonal to the existing 3. Like, how did I even live before this book?

pesfandiar 8y ago

I enjoyed that and some of his other books, but it was The God Delusion that did it for me. Having been born in a religious society makes it hard to break out of needing to assume there is a god, but that book could give people enough explanation to drop that assumption.

nicoburns 8y ago
I always think it's really interesting how our upbringings shape us. I'd never even heard of god until I was 4, when I must have heard the word mentioned, asked my dad what it mean, and it was explained to me as a thing up in the sky that some people believe in.

fermienrico 8y ago

This book has had a monumental, life altering perspective shift in everyone I know that have read it. Warning: If you go over the fence, there is no returning back. Your thought process will change forever (for the good in my view).

stallmanifold 8y ago

I also recommend Dawkins' follow-up book, "The Extended Phenotype." Dawkins' most popular writing may be on atheism and the critique of religion, but I think his greatest contributions were really found in this book plus The Selfish Gene. Though as a caveat, "The Extended Phenotype" requires some more technical sophistication in evolutionary biology than Selfish Gene.

onychomys 8y ago

Note, of course, that he was wrong about the gene being the unit of selection. Selection happens at an organismal level. As we've come to understand the interconnectedness of the genome, this has become even more clear. Dawkins' ideas generated a lot of debate among evolutionary biologists in the 1980s, but have largely fallen out of favor. They're just too simplistic to reflect reality.

nabnob 8y ago
I thought the modern view of natural selection is that it occurs at multiple levels - gene, individual organism, group selection, etc.
- gagagababa 8y ago
  Indeed, it is.
- onychomys 8y ago
  There's evidence that selection happens at the organismal level (duh) and at the species level, but nothing else. There's some weak evidence that it can happen at levels above species (genus, family, etc), but it's not super well supported. The question of population-level selection (what you've called group selection) is more contentious, although it shouldn't be. The grandpa of our field, E.O. Wilson, whom we all adore and wish we could constantly hug, loves the idea. Sadly, evidence doesn't love it. Like, there's basically none. There's no real theoretical underpinnings that would make it possible, either, because there's just too much gene flow between demes (...partially isolated breeding populations) to allow selection to happen.
gagagababa 8y ago
Glad that somebody pointed that out. IMO, if somebody wants to get a quick overview of genetics, their time would be much better spent watching lectures 4-7 from Sapolsky's Human Behavioural Biology lectures [1]. In those 4 lectures Sapolsky's explores contradicting theories about (among other things) the unit of selection and gradualism. Highly recommend the whole series. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dRXA1_e30o&list=PL150326949691B199&index=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dRXA1_e30o&list=PL150326949...

obelos 8y ago

Dawkins is amazingly lucid when he sticks to topics he knows very well. “The Selfish Gene” and “The Extended Phenotype” were world altering for me. Like integral calculus, I rarely have cause to apply the concept in the domain in which it was described, but the understanding that his conveyance of the material shaped in me is something I feel in my thinking every day, more than two decades later. “The Mating Mind” by Geoffrey Miller (another biologist who would do the world a favor by sticking to his domain of expertise) came to me more recently but has left a similar impression. It impeccably elaborates upon the power of sexual selection and how it intertwines with natural selection.

scottlocklin 8y ago

Yeah, that was a biggie for me, until I read "Darwinian Fairytales" by David Stove. Everyone who has read Dawkins needs to have a look at this. A philosopher has a look at what Dawkins actually says and realizes it is basically medieval demonology dressed up in pseudoscientific verbiage.

FabHK 8y ago
Hmm, I'll check that Darwinian Fairytales out. However, I must say, I've read Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments against Evolutionary Psychology, to see what critics of Dawkins and evolutionary psychology had to say, and found it rather poor. So, for now, my considered view is that Dawkins has many interesting insightful things to say, while his critics are often attacking straw men.
YouAreGreat 8y ago
> "Darwinian Fairytales" by David Stove The search engine coughed up a PDF. I randomly opened it (p. 173) and read up to this author-provided "TL;DR" on p.176: The main reason, however, for thinking that sociobiology is false, is the simple one I gave at the beginning: that it is obvious that human beings are the most intelligent and capable things on earth. But genes are not human. Therefore (etc.). Uhhhm. Really?
- namarie 8y ago
  Well, it might make more sense in context. You can't litterally read a random sentence on a random page of a book and expect to have a reasonable opinion on its quality.

3chelon 8y ago

Seconded. I actually read "The Blind Watchmaker" first and that had just as big an impact on me. As someone else said, no going back after reading it. It also gave me the confidence to realise I was actually an atheist, not an apologetic agnostic!

suyash 8y ago

What's the big deal and why are so many people raving about this book? Can someone summarize the key points in a paragraph or two?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lelima 8y ago
just go for it man, yolo. tldr: Talk about how genes influence organism, is like reading animal planet