The Selfish Gene

Starting with the least egregious first: I have to say is that Dawkins' editors (across all the editions) definitely did not do their job, if they even tried to in the first place. There are areas where the book does nothing but repeat the same sentence over and over in consecutive lines, and it's like no one noticed that he wrote the same thing. I was starting to feel déjà vu when reading it out loud to my partner, and it was really pissing me off.

Next, his examples are almost entirely hypothetical, and I do not care if something is "mathematically sound." Does it actually work that way? Should I really be thinking of it in that framework? In a lot of parts, I really get the feeling that I shouldn't be and like he tried his best to tip-toe around the things he "shouldn't say but really wants to." Not to mention that at some point, in the update to the 40th edition, he tries to prove a point using hypothetical seaweed! Like, certainly there has to be something real that he could discuss. If not, he shouldn't present his thoughts or assumptions as fact.

It's an... incredibly sexist book that tip-toes around white supremacist structures. It's no wonder that so many dudes on red pill podcasts still really like this book (especially since I remember pre-red-pill that a lot of cis men loved this book, and it really became a red flag of sorts).

Tied to that, he really loves to go after either easy conservative critics of his book or people who actually have legitimate criticisms of his work (which he treats with contempt rather than really addressing them in a useful manner). For the former, it's because he made his name going after easy fundamentalist targets... so he's keeping his normal brand. For the latter, it's because he can't stand being told he's wrong or that he's misinterpreted something in a field he's not a part of (usually anthropology). This is hilarious because, in the epilogue to the 40th anniversary edition, he claims that scientists can at least be told they're wrong (unlike politicians). This is hilarious because my entire experience of scientists (and honestly, academics or high-level researchers) has been that they... can't handle people disproving them. We often get stuck with incorrect science for decades because of this! It's amazing that he'd ever say it, but it's not surprising because... that's literally him.

There was at least one really funny moment that felt very out of place. We were reading all of the footnotes as we went. Many of these were far too long and should've never been allowed to be a footnote, which is another reason why I think his editors didn't do shit to actually make the book coherent. Like seriously, there was one footnote that was roughly five pages and entirely about penises for some reason that I cannot remember and did not feel relevant to the conversation at hand, and there were many others to correct things that didn't need to be corrected, like to account for updates to a series of novels that he referenced that wouldn't have changed the point he was making. But the best one was him complaining about computer viruses and programmers who make them and just... what the fuck. It was so out of left field that, as I was reading it, I thought I'd lost my mind.

This book is rubbish. Whatever useful information anyone has gleaned from it, we don't need this. It's truly an excessively verbose piece of nonsense written by one of the most pompous men in his field.

"Quit being so selfish, Gene!" Jimmy Fallon's fumbled line from SNL's classic "Don't Fear the Reaper" sketch came to mind several times while reading this excellent book. While of course there is little relevance between the two, the more widely known line about cowbells curing fevers does typify a unit of culture for which Dawkins coined the term "meme," which is now itself a meme.

This discussion of memes is what drew me to the book in the first place, but I enjoyed most of the rest of the book even more. There is great food for thought here, most especially the idea that bodies are merely survival machines, constructed and programmed at the whim of the genes inside, sequences of DNA with no purpose other than maximizing their own replication. The genes do this not only by improving their host bodies for their own survival, but also by directing the bodies to alter their environment and interact with certain other bodies.

Dawkins turns Darwin around, looking at natural selection from the point of view of the gene. The survival of the fittest is just the consequence of which genes find the best method of maintaining their existence.

Along with some very interesting descriptions of biological oddities, such as symbiotic species, Dawkins looks at his selfish gene theory from multiple angles, some of which are surprising. I particularly found the bonus chapter about the Prisoner's Dilemma enthralling, in that a relatively simple set of rules can determine selfish versus altruistic behavior.

This is a great book, especially after reading Darwin. It really allows you to "explore the space."

Reading "The Selfish Gene" is a classic case of liking the message, disliking the messenger. In general, I did not find anything particularly objectionable to its content and think that Dawkins is probably correct about how evolution works. He explains it in simple, easy-to-understand language and should be read for its ideas.

But I disliked the process of reading the book. The prose rambles and often feels like it was dictated and then transcribed. And I'll admit that ultimately, I found Dawkins' arrogance to be off-putting. He is truly convinced that this story is sufficient to construct a world-view. I do not begrudge him his beliefs and I do believe there should be a strong, vocal humanist/atheist movement. But I believe that this movement is weighed down by Dawkins' success. He is just as fundamentalist and dogmatic as those he criticizes.

What does make reading "The Selfish Gene" fascinating is that we can see the seeds of Dawkins' later activism and how deeply tied into his academic work those beliefs can be. Worth reading for its ideas if you can get past its prose and style.

The Selfish Gene was originally published in 1976 and remains a brilliant, amazing explanation and perspective on evolution at a gene level. It's also the book wherein the word "meme" is invented. I'd read this decades ago of course, back in the 80s and I highly recommend that everyone should read it.

That said, I am now listening to the audio book version of the updated edition, and I really don't recommend that, which is why not 5 stars. The problem with the audio book is that footnotes just don't work. And the updated edition is absolutely full of footnotes that interrupt the main text. Dawkins decided to get around this problem in the audiobook by having a female narrator read the main text and by interrupting in his own voice with the footnotes. Sounds good in theory, but it makes it really hard to follow the chapters if you don't already know and understand the topic. In addition, while Dawkins is undeniably an amazingly brilliant scientist, he's also quite a conceited jerk on a personal level. Many of his footnotes aren't even updated facts at all, they're just him taking the opportunity to respond to critics of the original book by pointing out how they're all wrong. I wasn't two chapters in before I was super annoyed at his voice constantly interrupting the narration to say things like "Stephen J Gould critiqued my point here but clearly he completely failed to notice I already made the same argument he did in chapter 8" or similar.

So, absolutely read the book, and pick up the updated edition in print if you want the latest revisions, but definitely avoid the audiobook form unless you can find the original edition.