Book Review: The Selfish Gene

My first encounter with Dawkins was when I heard excerpts from his book "The God Delusion", and I must say I was not quite impresed. My belief in atheism was strong enough and I did not need one more book telling me flaws in religion. Anyways, I haven't really read that book and hence shall not criticize it much. Dawkins, however, kept coming up in arguments with friends after that.

Recently, having heard about it a lot, I picked up Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene", and unlike God Delusion I was quite liked this book. This book takes your understanding of the theory of evolution to an entirely new level. The book introduces the concept of the Selfish Geneand then tries to explain the various questions in the evolution theory using this concept.

I would definitely recommend this book to every student of logic. That is because while reading this book you would be constantly thinking about the cause-effect relationship. The book may at times take you to a point where you start belieing that the gene actually has a conscious and being selfish. The author, however, is constantly aware of this fact and will pull you back from time to time.

Another interesting concept in this book is the application of Game Theory in the understanding of evolution. Although not Dawkins' idea(John Maynard Smith has done a lot more work in this field), he has put this idea nicely in Layman's terms. These ideas definitely give a new perspective and broaden your understanding of nature.

I think one of the weakness (or maybe the strength) of this book is that it deals with behavioral evolution rather than physical evolution. This becomes a weakness only because the book is then not very useful for an absolute beginner in this theory. But I guess the book was never meant to be so.

At this point, I would like to note some of the most interesting and and controversial points the book makes:

1) The most fascinating idea I found in this bookwas that of treating two symbiotic lives as one. There exist symbiotic species in nature who are interdependent on each other not just for sustainnce but also reproduction. Their genes evolve have evolved in such a way as the survival of one without the other is impossible. This idea, as complex and logical as it may sound, is also very very poetic.

2) Memes: As an analogy to the Selfish Gene Theory, Dawkins has tried to explain the evolution of culture through the concept of Memes. Although a very nice analogy, I would be much more fascinated if this concept could be given a physical meaning. My knowledge of neurology is next to zero, but I would be really fascinated if Memes could actually be represented by a physical structure in human memory.

3) The Extended Phenotype: Dawkins proposes that a peculiar nest of a particular species of bird is an extended phenotype(or an extended effect) of it's genes. Thus the genes do not just affect the physical organs of a body but may also have an extended effect on the surroundings of a bird. Dawkins mentions that he has elaborated this idea in much more detail in his book titled "The Extended Phenotype". I am quite anxious to read that book now.

The whole reason I like the theory of evolution so much is that it is a theory that teaches you basic priciples of science and rationality in a very intuitive way. You do not have to understand complex laws of physics in order to understand this theory. It's beauty lies in its simplicity. Simplicity however, is not an easy thing to define. But that's another story.