The Extended Selfish Gene

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    The Extended Selfish Gene Author: Format: Hardback First Published: Published By: Oxford University Press
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    Pages: 592 Illustrations and other contents: 9 black and white images Language: English ISBN: 9780198788782 Categories: , , , ,

    The Selfish Gene is a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. In it Professor Dawkins articulates a gene’s eye view of evolution – a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for the replication of genes. The book provoked widespread and heated debate, which in part led Dawkins to write The Extended Phenotype, in which he gave a deeper clarification of the central concept of the gene as the unit of selection, as well as contributing his own development of this insight. For the first time, The Extended Selfish Gene brings these two books together, by including two key chapters from The Extended Phenotype. These chapters provide Dawkins’s detailed and powerful response to two issues raised by critics of The Selfish Gene: the accusations of genetic determinism (the idea that our behaviour is entirely determined by our genes), and of “adaptationism ” (that all traits are indiscriminately perceived to be adaptations resulting from natural selection). While written in particular for the biology community, Dawkins’s clarity of expression allows these chapters to be accessible to all who are seriously engaged with the gene’s eye view and its implications. The imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant Selfish Gene not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research. Forty years later, its insights remain as significant as on the day it was published. Along with the two extra chapters, The Extended Selfish Gene includes a new epilogue to The Selfish Gene from the author which highlights the relevance of the gene’s eye view to evolutionary biology today.

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    From the moment of its publication 40 years ago, it has been a sparkling best-seller and a scientific game-changer. * Matt Ridley, Nature * Review from previous edition The sort of popular science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius. * New York Times * This book should be read, can be read, by almost everyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution. W.D. Hamilton, Science Learned, witty and very well written...Exhilaratingly good. Peter Medawar in The Spectator The exciting theories and their wide implications are explaned with clarity, wit and enthusiasm. Peter Parker, Sunday Times Dawkins demonstrates that complex, theoretical or mathematical ideas can be expressed rigorously, in plain English. The book remains an excellent way for those who have not been trained in evolution to understand modern arguments. Trends in Ecology and Evolution A splendid example of how difficult scientific ideas can be explained by someone who understands them and is willing to take the trouble. The New Yorker the reader will come away with a clear understanding of kin selection, evolutionary stable strategies, and similar staples of the literature on evolutionary theories of animal behaviour. This is a considerable achievement.' Times Higher Education Supplement Buy this book, read it and recommend it to your students...There is still nothing else quite like it. Not only are the new chapters and endnotes worthy additions to the original, but the 1976 text comes up as fresh as a primrose and, in its way, nearly as perfect. * Animal Behaviour * What is so refreshing about Dawkins is that he has confidence in the scientific method, in the testing of beliefs to destruction, no matter how cherished they may be. * Benjamin Woolley, The Listener * 'Scientists give every appearance of being addicts, and science is their vice. That is one reason why progress in science is so rapid. I for one have benefited a great deal from Dawkins's addiction.' David L. Hull, Nature 'It's a classic that's still relevant today.' * Daily Express * Dawkins's first book, The Selfish Gene, was a smash hit... Best of all, Dawkins laid out this biology - some of it truly subtle - in stunningly lucid prose. (It is, in my view, the best work of popular science ever written.) * H. Allen Orr, New York Review of Books * The Selfish Gene is a classic. * Robin McKie, The Observer * A genuine cultural landmark of our time. * The Independent * Review from previous edition The sort of popular science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius. * New York Times * A splendid edition with a new introduction as well as (importantly) the introductions to the previous editions. * Jonathan Cowie, Concatenation *

    Author Biography

    Professor Richard Dawkins is one of the most influential science writers and communicators of our generation. He was the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position he held from 1995 until 2008, and is Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford. His bestselling books include The Selfish Gene (1976), The Extended Phenotype (1982) and its sequel The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), A Devil's Chaplain (2004), The Ancestor's Tale (2004), and The God Delusion (2007). He has won many literary and scientific awards, including the 1987 Royal Society of Literature Award, the 1990 Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the 1994 Nakayama Prize for Human Science, the 1997 International Cosmos Prize, and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest in 2009.