Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think [Book Review]

International Herald Tribune ^ | 28 June 2006 | Nicholas Wade (reviewer)

[PatrickHenry]

Thirty years ago, the young Richard Dawkins set out to explain some new ideas in evolutionary biology to a wider audience. But he ended up restating Darwinian theory in such a broad and forceful way that his book has influenced specialists as well.

 

"Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think" is a collection of essays about Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene" and its impact.

[snip]

The biologists have copious praise for Dawkins's work of synthesis, while the writers remark on his graceful and vivid style. It is quite surprising for anyone to be commended from such opposite quarters, but "The Selfish Gene," published in 1976, was unusual. Written in clear and approachable language, it worked its way so logically into the core of Darwinian theory that even evolutionary biologists were seduced into embracing Dawkins's view of their world.

Dawkins's starting point was the idea that the gene, not the individual, is the basic unit on which natural selection acts. The gene's behavior is most easily understood by assuming its interest is to get itself replicated as much as possible - hence the "selfish" gene of the title.

[big snip]

Despite a fond appreciation in this volume from his local cleric, the bishop of Oxford, Dawkins has become known to a wider public as a rationalist and a vocal atheist with little time for forms of religious obscurantism like creationism.

[snip to the end]

[betty boop]

Guess so, PH. Forgive me. God bless you also, dear Patrick!

[hosepipe]

Is patrony an aggressive act?...

[DarkSavant]

If you ever heard of the idea of the "meme" (a self replicating bit of information much like a "gene" but normally called an idea) this is where that idea was born. It leads to a whole new way of viewing culture and human thought.

Isn't the idea of the meme a meme in and of itself? If so, how it it any more reliable than any other meme? The entire hypothesis strikes me as worthless for any practical purposes.

[furball4paws]

"What is the origin of the will to live? "

The origin of the will to live is that without you die. That is, without the "will" to live, life becomes extinct.

POC

[Alamo-Girl]

Are you saying that life is a metaphor? Perhaps as in an illusion, an ephiphenomenon - a secondary phenomenon which cannot cause anything to happen?

[Alamo-Girl]

The origin of the will to live is that without you die.

That requires intention - consciousness - decision making - and yet even molecular machinery will struggle to survive after an insult to the physical brain, plants struggle to survive, amoeba etc.

What is the origin of the will to live - or, if you wish to skip ahead, to die?

[js1138]

"Wanting" to live is a figure of speech. I'll leave it to the grammarians to say which one.

[balrog666]

Skipping-ahead placemarker.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply! Feel free to substitute a word of your liking for "want" in the phrase "want to live". The question remains, what is its origin?

[js1138]

At what level do you want an explanation? If the explanation is presented at the level of chemistry, it is reductionism. If the explanation is presented at the level of population genetics it is a just so story.

We have been around and around with this. Science investigates phenomena with the tools available at the time, and scientific explanations are sometimes just formal descriptions of relationships among phenomena.

There is nothing in the behavior of genes that suggests that their behavior can't be explained with the methods of biochemistry. There is nothing about the frequency or distribution of alleles that suggests anything is at work other than selection.

[Alamo-Girl]

How strange. I made a reply to you - I thought - and looking back now, it is not here. I must have mashed "x" instead of "post" LOL!

At what level do you want an explanation?

I'd prefer ontological though it will be hard for us to navigate the "what is all that there is" part of agreeing to terms.

[furball4paws]

No, I disagree. It only involves selection - Live or Die.

[Alamo-Girl]

I don't know if you meant that to be funny, but it really tickles me!

[js1138]

I don't think science is going to help you there.

[furball4paws]

I'm glad to see you laughing.

[Alamo-Girl]

If science had all the answers, that might be disturbing. LOL!

[Alamo-Girl]

Good! Thank you for your replies!

[Rudder]

Thanks!

I've "re-girded my loins" in preparation for battle."

Actually, I grew weary of the "same old--same old."