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$\"Gravatar\"$ (Lying about Books) \"If you're lying about having read The Selfish Gene to impress your friends, then just get some new friends.\" To funny.

The really sad thing is that I don't know if I've read \"1984\" or not. I'm pretty sure I have because I seem to remember the protagonist describing the way a leaf kept the sidewalk from getting wet and so determined that he could keep his shot from taking effect. But did I see that in a movie? I've seen the b&w version. Still, I'm pretty sure I've read it.

AMDG, Janet
Janet | Homepage | 03.09.09 - 5:42 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ What did you think of Selfish Gene? I'm guessing it to be, basically, scientific materialism injected with half-baked mysticism from an inconsistent atheist/biologist. I've heard people say that it's is a good book, but I've read the God Delusion which is a cranky time waster (although a fun compendium of logical fallacies).
Keith Rickert Jr. | Homepage | 03.14.09 - 6:05 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ I think *The Selfish Gene* is an admirable work of speculative biology. Ever since the first real breakthroughs in genetics, in the generation after Darwin, it's been assumed that that branch of biology would have much to say -- either in support, in clarification, or in correction of Darwin's proposition that natural selection is the engine that drives evolutionary change. Dawkins's book directs our attention toward the level of the individual gene, rather than the speciated organism, as the entity that natural selection operates to preserve and perpetuate, and I think his theorizing on that point is ingenious and, to some degree, revelatory. Dawkins is a smart guy, within his relatively narrow field of expertise.

Unfortunately, Dawkins seems not to appreciate just how narrow that field of expertise is, and he lets his neurotic hatred of religion lead him into areas of philosophical speculation that are, frankly, embarrassing.

I think *The Selfish Gene* is worth reading (but not worth lying about having read); and I would suggest reading it in conjunction with David Stove's *Darwinian Fairy Tales*, which does a good job of catching Dawkins out at every point at which he strays beyond biology to peddle his ill-thought-out metaphysics.

By the way, your characterization of *The God Delusion* may be the most well-chosen eleven words ever written about it.
Woodward | Homepage | 03.14.09 - 10:33 pm | #

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