The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
by Richard Dawkins
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Book Summary Information
Author: Richard DawkinsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-25
ISBN: 0199291152
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
Book Review: "God is a meme." That idea, by itself, is worth seven stars!
Summary: 4 Stars
"God is a meme." This simple idea destroys 200 generations of theological philosophizing. So why only four stars? Through no fault of Dawkins', this book, written over 30 years ago, is dated. I don't think it ranks as a theory of evolution, at best it is a hypothesis which Dawkins has a very hard time stating. There is so much quibbling in the initial chapters that I was close to giving up. I was reminded of early science writers who had to resort to "humors" and "ethers" to substantiate their theories.
So, why four stars? Because Dawkins was on the point of "discovering" emergence. He actually used the word without realizing its full impact. The meme, of course, is the "motive power," if you will, of the emergent next step beyond genes, what Dawkins calls the vehicle (for genes). If you believe in evolution beyond the Darwinian biological stage, emergence makes a lot of sense: from Big Bang to matter, to atoms, to stars, to galaxies in one direction and from atoms to molecules, to life forms, to intelligence, to technology and beyond in another. If you are interested in exploring emergence I can recommend "At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity" by Stuart Kauffman who argues that Darwinian evolution is necessary but not sufficient to account for evolution. For a look at future emergence, I recommend "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence" by Ray Kurzweil who talks about our robotic descendants. Another excellent book related to emergence is "Deep Simplicity (Penguin Press Science)" by John Gribbin.
BTW, deep simplicity is what "The Selfish Gene" lacks.
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