Book review: The Selfish Gene

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

First, to avoid confusion, I should point out that the title may mislead. The book doesn't deal with a gene for human selfishness, or even explicitly selfish behavior at all (on the contrary, much of its focus is on altruism). Rather, it refers to genes themselves. Selfishness is an anthropomorphized analog of the behavior of genes, or, less specifically, any replicating entity. The exact reason for the analogy is spelled out well enough in the book.

Essentially what the book does is begin with a single original self-replicating molecule and attempt to explain how the logical consequence of that molecule is life as we know it today. There are understandably necessary gaps left for the reader to fill in by the end, but I think the book definitely does no poor job of giving credence to this theory. It offers a 300 page exploration into how animal behavior is a statistical and consequential result of the replicator. Dawkins also takes the time to introduce some rather interesting concepts, such as the "meme" (a term you blogging folk can thank Dawkins for, by the way) and the extended phenotype (star of its own book as well).

Dawkins takes Darwinian natural selection and scales it down to the only level at which it really applies: that of the gene. It is a common misconception in popular science today that natural selection occurs at the group, or even at the individual level. It doesn't. The only truly distinct unit that is ever being selected for or against is the gene. By the same token, the gene itself is not interested in the survival of the species, nor even particularly interested in the survival of the individual. The only thing the gene is determined to preserve is itself, and it does so through successive generations of living shells (you and I).
Any sensibly-minded observer will point out that words such as interest or determination have no place in describing the actions of blind, motiveless genes, and they would be entirely correct. Dawkins goes to great pains to keep metaphor binded to reality and to thoroughly explain how, when he simplifies that a gene "wants" to do this or that, he simply means that it will have a natural tendency to do this or that.

In a nutshell, his theory goes something like this: in the beginning, there was the replicator. There need be only one, because after awhile, there will be two, and then four, and then a billion. Eventually enough replicators will have come to be that space or resources will run out. After that, the replicator that, say, dons a lipid coat will have a better chance of surviving than its neighbors. As replicators and their vehicles become more complicated, they will become more or less likely to continue replicating, and so complexity continues to increase ad absurdum. Voilà, us. The rest of the book is spent explaining certain things based on this view of life, and it does a convincing job of it.

If you're interested in this kind of stuff, it's an essential read. If not, it's good nonetheless. I give it a 4/5, but that scale is purely arbitrary.

Next time: Global Brain: The Evolution of the Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century