The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages.
As influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. 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 their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work 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 relevant today as on the day it was published.
This 40th anniversary edition includes a new epilogue from the author discussing the continuing relevance of these ideas in evolutionary biology today, as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews.
Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.
**
Cover 1
THE SELFISH GENE 4
Copyright 5
Contents 6
INTRODUCTION TO 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION 8
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 20
FOREWORD TO FIRST EDITION 26
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 30
1. WHY ARE PEOPLE? 34
2. THE REPLICATORS 48
3. IMMORTAL COILS 59
4. THE GENE MACHINE 92
5. AGGRESSION 119
6. GENESMANSHIP 147
7. FAMILY PLANNING 174
8. BATTLE OF THE GENERATIONS 192
9. BATTLE OF THE SEXES 215
10. YOU SCRATCH MY BACK, I’LL RIDE ON YOURS 249
11. MEMES 278
12. NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST 294
13. THE LONG REACH OF THE GENE 335
EPILOGUE TO 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION 378
ENDNOTES 392
CHAPTER 1: Why are people? 392
p. 1 . . . all attempts to answer that question before 1859 are worthless . . . 392
p. 3 I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. 392
p. 7 . . . it is possible that the female improves the male’s sexual performanceby eating his head. 394
p. 14 . . . the fundamental unit of selection is not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene . . . 394
CHAPTER 2: The replicators 395
p. 18 The simplified account I shall give [of the origin of life] is probably not too far from the truth. 395
p. 21 ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive . . . ’ 395
p. 25 Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots . . . 396
CHAPTER 3: Immortal coils 397
p. 30 . . . impossible to disentangle the contribution of one gene from that of another. 397
p. 36 The definition I want to use comes from G. C. Williams. 398
p. 43 . . . the individual is too large and too temporary a genetic unit . . . 399
p. 51 Another theory, due to Sir Peter Medawar . . . 400
p. 55 What is the good of sex? 401
p. 57 . . . the surplus DNA is . . . a parasite, or at best a harmless but useless passenger . . . (see also p. 237) 401
CHAPTER 4: The gene machine 402
p. 63 Brains may be regarded as analogous in function to computers. 402
p. 68 There is a civilization 200 light-years away, in the constellation of Andromeda. 404
p. 71 . . . strategies and tricks of the living trade . . . 404
p. 76 Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain’s simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself. 405
p. 78 A gene for altruistic behaviour . . . 408
p. 79 Hygienic bees 409
p. 81 This is the behaviour that can be broadly labelled communication. 409
CHAPTER 5: Aggression: stability and the selfish machine 410
p. 90 . . . evolutionarily stable strategy . . . 410
p. 97 . . . retaliator emerges as evolutionarily stable. 410
p. 98 Unfortunately, we know too little at present to assign realistic numbers to the costs and benefits of various outcomes in nature. 411
p. 104 The neatest demonstration I know of this form of behavioural asymmetry . . . 412
p. 106 Paradoxical ESS 413
p. 106 . . . a kind of dominance hierarchy [in crickets] . . . 415
p. 109 . . . the ESS concept as one of the most important advances inevolutionary theory since Darwin. 415
p. 113 Progressive evolution may be not so much a steady upward climb as a series of discrete steps from stable plateau to stable plateau. 416
CHAPTER 6: Genesmanship 416
p. 117 . . . I have never been able to understand why they have been so neglected . . . 416
p. 117 . . . I shall assume that we are talking about genes that are rare . . . 416
p. 121 . . . armadillos . . . it would be well worth somebody’s while going out to South America to have a look. 417
p. 122 Kin selection is emphatically not a special case of group selection. 419
p. 122 He deliberately excludes offspring: they don’t count as kin! 420
p. 124 But what a complicated calculation . . . 420
p. 128 . . . we have to think how animals might actually go about estimating who their close relations are . . . We know who our relations are because we are told . . . 422
p. 129 . . . the injurious effects of recessive genes which appear with inbreeding. (For some reason many anthropologists do not like thisexplanation.) 422
p. 134 Since [cuckoo hosts] are not in danger of being parasitized by members of their own species . . . 424
p. 136 Kin selection in lions 424
p. 137 If C is my identical twin . . . 425
p. 138 . . . social anthropologists might have interesting things to say. 426
CHAPTER 7: Family planning 427
p. 142 Wynne-Edwards . . . has been mainly responsible for promulgating the idea of group selection. 427
CHAPTER 8: Battle of the generations 428
p. 160 R. L. Trivers, in 1972, neatly solved the problem . . . 428
p. 175 According to him the parent will always win. 428
CHAPTER 9: Battle of the Sexes 430
p. 182 . . . how much more severe must be the conflict between mates, who are not related to each other? 430
p. 184 . . . the number of children a male can have is virtually unlimited. Female exploitation begins here. 430
p. 196 Let us take Maynard Smith’s method of analysing aggressive contests, and apply it to sex. 432
p. 198 . . . it can be shown that really there would be no oscillation. The system would converge to a stable state. 433
p. 202 . . . cases of paternal devotion . . . common among fish. Why? 434
p. 206 . . . a kind of unstable, runaway process. 434
p. 207 . . . [Zahavi’s] . . . maddeningly contrary ‘handicap principle’ 440
CHAPTER 10: You scratch my back, I’ll ride on yours 446
p. 225 . . . it seems to be only in the social insects that [the evolution of sterile workers] has actually happened. 446
p. 228 . . . a hymenopteran female is more closely related to her sisters than she is to her offspring. 449
p. 230 They found a rather convincingly close fit to the 3: 1 female to male ratio predicted . . . 454
p. 242 If a population arrives at an ESS that drives it extinct, then it goes extinct, and that is just too bad. 455
CHAPTER 11: Memes: the new replicators 456
p. 248 I would put my money on one fundamental principle . . . all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. 456
p. 249 Meme 456
p. 249 . . . memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. 457
p. 252 ‘Auld Lang Syne’ 458
p. 252 If the meme is a scientific idea, its spread will depend on how acceptable it is to the population of individual scientists; a rough measure of its survival value could be obtained by counting the number of times it is referred to in successive years in scientific journals. 459
p. 255 The computers in which memes live are human brains. 464
p. 257 Blind faith can justify anything. 465
p. 260 We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. 466
BIBLIOGRAPHY 468
INDEX AND KEY TO BIBLIOGRAPHY 480
EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS 490
Cover
1
THE SELFISH GENE 4
Copyright 5
Contents 6
INTRODUCTION TO 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION 8
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 20
FOREWORD TO FIRST EDITION 26
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 30
1. WHY ARE PEOPLE? 34
2. THE REPLICATORS 48
3. IMMORTAL COILS 59
4. THE GENE MACHINE 92
5. AGGRESSION 119
6. GENESMANSHIP 147
7. FAMILY PLANNING 174
8. BATTLE OF THE GENERATIONS 192
9. BATTLE OF THE SEXES 215
10. YOU SCRATCH MY BACK, I’LL RIDE ON YOURS 249
11. MEMES 278
12. NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST 294
13. THE LONG REACH OF THE GENE 335
EPILOGUE TO 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION 378
ENDNOTES 392
CHAPTER 1: Why are people? 392
p. 1 . . . all attempts to answer that question before 1859 are worthless . . . 392
p. 3 I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. 392
p. 7 . . . it is possible that the female improves the male’s sexual performanceby eating his head. 394
p. 14 . . . the fundamental unit of selection is not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene . . . 394
CHAPTER 2: The replicators 395
p. 18 The simplified account I shall give [of the origin of life] is probably not too far from the truth. 395
p. 21 ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive . . . ’ 395
p. 25 Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots . . . 396
CHAPTER 3: Immortal coils 397
p. 30 . . . impossible to disentangle the contribution of one gene from that of another. 397
p. 36 The definition I want to use comes from G. C. Williams. 398
p. 43 . . . the individual is too large and too temporary a genetic unit . . . 399
p. 51 Another theory, due to Sir Peter Medawar . . . 400
p. 55 What is the good of sex? 401
p. 57 . . . the surplus DNA is . . . a parasite, or at best a harmless but useless passenger . . . (see also p. 237) 401
CHAPTER 4: The gene machine 402
p. 63 Brains may be regarded as analogous in function to computers. 402
p. 68 There is a civilization 200 light-years away, in the constellation of Andromeda. 404
p. 71 . . . strategies and tricks of the living trade . . . 404
p. 76 Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain’s simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself. 405
p. 78 A gene for altruistic behaviour . . . 408
p. 79 Hygienic bees 409
p. 81 This is the behaviour that can be broadly labelled communication. 409
CHAPTER 5: Aggression: stability and the selfish machine 410
p. 90 . . . evolutionarily stable strategy . . . 410
p. 97 . . . retaliator emerges as evolutionarily stable. 410
p. 98 Unfortunately, we know too little at present to assign realistic numbers to the costs and benefits of various outcomes in nature. 411
p. 104 The neatest demonstration I know of this form of behavioural asymmetry . . . 412
p. 106 Paradoxical ESS 413
p. 106 . . . a kind of dominance hierarchy [in crickets] . . . 415
p. 109 . . . the ESS concept as one of the most important advances inevolutionary theory since Darwin. 415
p. 113 Progressive evolution may be not so much a steady upward climb as a series of discrete steps from stable plateau to stable plateau. 416
CHAPTER 6: Genesmanship 416
p. 117 . . . I have never been able to understand why they have been so neglected . . . 416
p. 117 . . . I shall assume that we are talking about genes that are rare . . . 416
p. 121 . . . armadillos . . . it would be well worth somebody’s while going out to South America to have a look. 417
p. 122 Kin selection is emphatically not a special case of group selection. 419
p. 122 He deliberately excludes offspring: they don’t count as kin! 420
p. 124 But what a complicated calculation . . . 420
p. 128 . . . we have to think how animals might actually go about estimating who their close relations are . . . We know who our relations are because we are told . . . 422
p. 129 . . . the injurious effects of recessive genes which appear with inbreeding. (For some reason many anthropologists do not like thisexplanation.) 422
p. 134 Since [cuckoo hosts] are not in danger of being parasitized by members of their own species . . . 424
p. 136 Kin selection in lions 424
p. 137 If C is my identical twin . . . 425
p. 138 . . . social anthropologists might have interesting things to say. 426
CHAPTER 7: Family planning 427
p. 142 Wynne-Edwards . . . has been mainly responsible for promulgating the idea of group selection. 427
CHAPTER 8: Battle of the generations 428
p. 160 R. L. Trivers, in 1972, neatly solved the problem . . . 428
p. 175 According to him the parent will always win. 428
CHAPTER 9: Battle of the Sexes 430
p. 182 . . . how much more severe must be the conflict between mates, who are not related to each other? 430
p. 184 . . . the number of children a male can have is virtually unlimited. Female exploitation begins here. 430
p. 196 Let us take Maynard Smith’s method of analysing aggressive contests, and apply it to sex. 432
p. 198 . . . it can be shown that really there would be no oscillation. The system would converge to a stable state. 433
p. 202 . . . cases of paternal devotion . . . common among fish. Why? 434
p. 206 . . . a kind of unstable, runaway process. 434
p. 207 . . . [Zahavi’s] . . . maddeningly contrary ‘handicap principle’ 440
CHAPTER 10: You scratch my back, I’ll ride on yours 446
p. 225 . . . it seems to be only in the social insects that [the evolution of sterile workers] has actually happened. 446
p. 228 . . . a hymenopteran female is more closely related to her sisters than she is to her offspring. 449
p. 230 They found a rather convincingly close fit to the 3: 1 female to male ratio predicted . . . 454
p. 242 If a population arrives at an ESS that drives it extinct, then it goes extinct, and that is just too bad. 455
CHAPTER 11: Memes: the new replicators 456
p. 248 I would put my money on one fundamental principle . . . all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. 456
p. 249 Meme 456
p. 249 . . . memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. 457
p. 252 ‘Auld Lang Syne’ 458
p. 252 If the meme is a scientific idea, its spread will depend on how acceptable it is to the population of individual scientists; a rough measure of its survival value could be obtained by counting the number of times it is referred to in successive years in scientific journals. 459
p. 255 The computers in which memes live are human brains. 464
p. 257 Blind faith can justify anything. 465
p. 260 We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. 466
BIBLIOGRAPHY 468
INDEX AND KEY TO BIBLIOGRAPHY 480
EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS 490

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Source title: The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary Edition (Oxford Landmark Science)

Er kroppene våre bare overlevelsesmaskiner for genene? Knapt noen bok innen biologi har siden Darwins Om artenes opprinnelse vakt slik oppsikt og debatt som Dawkins' Det egoistiske genet. Boken maktet å gjøre genteori og evolusjonsbiologi til folkelesning. Her kan man lese om livet på jorda sett fra genenes synsvinkel. Genenes eneste mål er å bringe flest mulig kopier av seg videre til nye generasjoner, og til dette trengs et verktøy - organismen. Enhver organisme, mennesket inkludert, kan derfor betraktes som en genstyrt robot, en marionett under DNA-trådene. Med hvor blir det da av menneskets frie vilje? Fritar et slikt verdensbilde oss fra moralsk ansvar? Nei, hevder Dawkins. Mennesket er ikke totaldeterminert, men kan som eneste art gjøre opprør mot genenes diktatur. Omtalen er utarbeidet av BS

**The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages.**__The Selfish Gene__

2020-08-06