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.
About the AuthorProfessor Richard Dawkins,
Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford, 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
