Amazon.com
Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.
Why are there miles and miles of "unused" DNA within each of our bodies? Why should a bee give up its own chance to reproduce to help raise her sisters and brothers? With a prophet's clarity, Dawkins told us the answers from the perspective of molecules competing for limited space and resources to produce more of their own kind. Drawing fascinating examples from every field of biology, he paved the way for a serious re-evaluation of evolution. He also introduced the concept of self-reproducing ideas, or memes, which (seemingly) use humans exclusively for their propagation. If we are puppets, he says, at least we can try to understand our strings. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages. This 30th anniversary edition includes a new introduction from the author as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews. As relevant and 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.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent overview of evolution.......2007-10-08
Scholars pro-evolution can generally be divided into 1) those who believe in evolution at the group level (ie: The reason lions behave in a particular way is because they want to survive as a species) or 2) those who believe in evolution at an individual level (ie: The reason a particular bird behaves in a particular way is because he wants to survive as an individual bird). Dawkins' views are closer to the latter. In fact, he takes it a step further and argues for evolution at the gene level. I think he makes a very convincing case for his views. Of course nothing is certain (except uncertainty perhaps) so he does not prove his theory definitively.
The book can be hard to read at times and may be a bit slow for those with no background in biology or science. Nevertheless I think anyone with patience can read, enjoy and learn from this important book.
No matter what your views this is a very educational and important book. Highly recommended.
Fancifully Dark.......2007-09-21
In his play "Suddenly, Last Summer," Tennessee Williams writes of a young man who, on vacation at the seashore, watches newly hatched baby turtles struggling down to the safety of the water. Only a small percentage get there, though, because the gulls overhead scoop them up and eat them faster than they can crawl. The young man, observing this and already under great psychic tension, tells his cousin that now "I have seen God!" Later on, we realize the man is morally insane, and that perhaps this was the turning point; his descent into insanity.
Whether Williams himself thought of God the same way, I don't know. But certainly the example of the turtles and gulls had been chosen, out of thousands of other such biological observations, because the young man chose to find God - or truth - in it. He could, if he had been in a sunnier mood, chosen to look at nesting robins or a mare and her colt.
In "The Selfish Gene," Dr. Dawkins argues against the idea of altruism in nature: mothers take care of their young because they love them, etc. Dawkins says they do it because it's in their genes. But he takes it one step further: he says it's the genes themselves that are struggling to survive - not the whole animal. The analogy of genes "using" animal bodies for their own "selfish" ends, as if we were robots and the genes our drivers, is made over and over again.
Of course, Dawkins realizes this is not correct. Darwinism asserts that biological life came into existence blindly: cells and animals came (and continue to come) into being, not because they chose to, but because of natural selection. And the ones who survive do so because of serendipity.
This is a very hard concept, of course, to understand. I remember Sister Pauline laboring to explain to us girls in junior biology class that the white butterflies didn't decide to turn black; they turned black over generations, due to natural selection. She had a hard time of it. (Catholics are "allowed" to choose between a literal or analogous interpretation of the Bible, so she was not breaking any official rules!)
In other words, a "selfish" gene (or animal) makes no more sense in Darwinistic terms than an "altruistic" one.
Dawkins explicitly states this on page 196. But he uses the selfish gene analogy so many more times - hundreds of times - that, just from the sheer repetitiveness of the theme, it may sink in too deeply (and do some psychic damage) to people who are not currently living on the sunny side of the street, so to speak.
For those people, like the gentleman who wrote the touching review of how this book contributed to fits of depression, I'd say: This point of view has no more legitimacy than the altrustic point of view.
An additional (and, I think, unnecessary) weight on the sensitive reader's soul is the aspersions that Dr. Dawkins, an aggressive atheist, throws on the concept of God - limited mainly, I think, to his chapter on memes (he saves most of his vituperation on this issue for another book, "The God Delusion").
On that score, I'd say: please realize that scientists don't know everything. People in different professions develop different mental prejudices: lawyers think like lawyers, engineers like engineers, etc. And scientists, for whom scientific method is everything, tend to think that anything that's not measurable therefore doesn't exist. This is a logical fallacy. They also tend to think they are so intelligent, and the world outside science is so simple, that they can read a few survey books on religion, philosophy, or history and know all there is to know about the field. This leads them to made irresponsible, blanket statements, completely unaware of how little they know.
On page 201, he winds up a chapter by saying all is not gloomy; humans can still strive towards altruism; that "[w]e, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators." Then, in a long footnote, he writes that some of his colleagues disapproved of this passionate summation. "In some cases, the criticism came from doctrinaire sociobiologists jealously protective of genetic influence...." and in others, from "high priests of the left jealously protective of a favorite demonological icon!" (His exclamation point.) These latter, apparently, were objecting that he on the one hand implied a belief in free will while on the other hand talking like a genetic determinist. He objects to this, saying, if I understand it, that he's both, and ends the argument by saying, "We, that is our brains, are separate and independent enough from our genes to rebel against them. ...[W]e do so in a small way every time we use contraception."
Now, I don't pretend to have a handle on the philosophical and sociobiological arguments regarding whether or not humans have free will, or even what exactly free will is. But in the above I don't see that Dr. Dawkins really does, either: he treats it far too simply.
In sum, read the book, but don't let it get you down. After all, if the village priest doesn't have the right to bully people intellectually, than neither does the research scientist.
Mandatory reading for students/interested persons.......2007-09-17
This is an excellent primer to biological evolution and could also be a valuable co-text with a standard high school biology course. Written in British english, it is quite understandable though more academic than casual.
Dawkins' use of the 'gene's eye view' of the world permeates the text. It is very easy to follow. A great book to rebut any creationist's
viewpoint. This was Dawkins' first book in the field. It will not disappoint or talk down to you.
Enjoy.
a mixed bag.......2007-09-09
Parts of the book were utterly fascinating to me, such as the groundbreaking idea of the "meme" as a unit of cultural transmission. But the argument that species are survival machines for our "immortal genes" seems seriously flawed.
First and foremost in my mind, it is hard for me to swallow that organisms practice altruism because the gene or genes that are responsible for this altruism have a probability of existing in the recipient of the altruism, the probability increasing with the closeness of familial relatedness. How, then, to explain altruism beyond the family, or even beyond the species? The author mentions that there is at least one well-documented case of a dolphin rescuing a drowning human being. In the book this was suggested to be a mistake. One of Earth's most intelligent animals has a gene for rescuing long, narrow objects and cannot tell the difference between a human and its own species. I got doubtful when contradictory evidence was explained as a mistake. And what about organisms' adopting children originating from other parents? Always a mistake? Highly expensive practice for when the real deal arises?
I do not understand why there must be *a* unit of natural selection. Can't there be more than one, sometimes at odds with each other, sometimes in tandem? I do believe genes are selected over other genes, but I believe groups can be selected over other groups, too. Perhaps other units, both larger and smaller than genes (Why not the selfish base pair?), are also naturally selected.
Finally, especially considering recent discoveries in genomics that have downsized the number of estimated human genes, there cannot be one gene behind any behavioral trait you can think of, a gene for being nice to your cousin, for example. I get that a gene can have many functions and can have a net effect of being nice to your cousin, and in its absence you would be less nice to your cousin, but this makes for a complicated web which would get torn apart as succeeding generations inherit just part of the web. The influences of biology, environment, and history get harder to ignore.
a new way to look at the world.......2007-08-29
Dawkins challenges us to look at old ideas (Darwinian) in a new light. At times I found his mathematical calculations tedious to follow, however when I bothered to think them through, they did make sense. I esepcially enjoyed the chapter on game theory because it helped to explain why humans do not usually behave in blatantly exploitive ways in spite of our "selfish genes". I recommend the book to anyone who wonders how the world works.
Book Description
In evolution, most genes survive and spread within populations because they increase the ability of their hosts (or their close relatives) to survive and reproduce. But some genes spread in spite of being harmful to the host organism--by distorting their own transmission to the next generation, or by changing how the host behaves toward relatives. As a consequence, different genes in a single organism can have diametrically opposed interests and adaptations.
Covering all species from yeast to humans, Genes in Conflict is the first book to tell the story of selfish genetic elements, those continually appearing stretches of DNA that act narrowly to advance their own replication at the expense of the larger organism. As Austin Burt and Robert Trivers show, these selfish genes are a universal feature of life with pervasive effects, including numerous counter-adaptations. Their spread has created a whole world of socio-genetic interactions within individuals, usually completely hidden from sight.
Genes in Conflict introduces the subject of selfish genetic elements in all its aspects, from molecular and genetic to behavioral and evolutionary. Burt and Trivers give us access for the first time to a crucial area of research--now developing at an explosive rate--that is cohering as a unitary whole, with its own logic and interconnected questions, a subject certain to be of enduring importance to our understanding of genetics and evolution.
Customer Reviews:
Holding it all together.......2007-07-10
When Richard Dawkins published "The Selfish Gene" two decades ago, today one wonders if he had any inkling then of what his idea launched. The din of protest over the concept was loud and vituperous. Yet, a generation of research has proven him more correct than anybody imagined then. In this work, researchers Trivers and Burt have summarized the wealth of information derived over the years. Genes do far more, it seems, than simply act to replicate themselves. They intrude, divert, even kill parts of the genome to provide themselves with any and every opportunity to endure down the generations. Some genes wish to protect the genome, while others seek to damage it - both for selfish ends. In this impressive and detailed overview, we learn which types of genes strive for dominance and why.
Your body is a mosaic of cell collections. These can be winnowed down to two basic types - somatic cells and sex cells. This is essentially the case for all plants and animals, down to such simple types as protozoa. The sex cells, the gametes, have the role of carrying the messages that will build the new body of somatic cells and containing new gametes. None of this process is as straightforward as was formerly thought. Within every body, conflicts rage as genes contend for favoured conditions. The genome, that fundamental instruction mechanism, is the arena where various genes, some with a long evolutionary history, insert themselves to provide a different recipe for life. The successful ones have what the authors describe as "drive". These genetic elements contrive to be transmitted to a disproportionate fraction of the organism's progeny" - a victory over the 50-50 Mendelian ratio taught in introductory biology classes.
The authors try to follow these actions from the molecular to the evolutionary, but as they accept, the full lines of evidence either have not, or cannot be tracked completely. They provide a brief history of research in selfish gene elements, then go on to expand on this with more recent work. Their account addresses such questions as how does the selfish element accomplish its ends, when and how did it likely originate, how far does it spread and how quickly, does it produce co-adaptations, and what does it do to the host and its lineage? The twists and turns of these elements vary from mundane parasitics who use the host only to replicate to killers which can modify sex ratios. The classifications they use permit the book to be read in any order, with the reader's interests easily covered by their chapter organisation.
Selfish genes may be readily identified in many cases by their tendency to locate on the centromeres of a chromosome. This is a critical area, hence protected from intrusion. Many of the groups, which may contain hundreds of genes, once found the means to enter this zone. Meiosis and cell division convey these groups through the process of reproduction and body construction, thus allowing them to proliferate easily. Of the ten topical areas, one of the more fascinating is that of gene imprinting. Unlike the "imprinting" of newborn creatures choosing the first moving object it sees as its parent, gene imprinting is parent-specific gene expression. Either the male or female parent may contain such genes, but in either circumstance, once established, a dominance will result that is passed to future generations. In many cases that imprinting will drive the sex of the embryo, usually favouring female progeny over male. Is it this sort of gene structure that contributed to the change from solitary insects such as the ancestral wasps to the social forms, including bees, that we see today? Is the formation of our own bodies, which are but groupings of specialised cells, the result of selfish genes that have learned to work together? How does it all hold together?
Clearly, as the authors point out, it is the sexual species where selfish gene elements have made their greatest successes. Some of them may find and invade the gamete cells and drive how the resulting union follows. In a few cases, the intruders have developed ways of ejecting unwanted segments from the gametes or the fertilised egg itself. With these methods available, they may even kill embryos of multiple-birth species, leaving only those individuals who carry their coding. With meticulous care, the authors describe those about which something is known, while pointing to areas needing dedicated research. Inevitably, the issue of stem cell research looms large in their proposals.
While the book is well-organised, effectively illustrated, and containing a useful glossary, it is the references that give it a firm underpinning. Burt and Trivers have made contributions of their own, but the nearly one hundred pages of source material are an invaluable resource. The authors have gone so far as to expand the subject areas in a special section to aid searching for topics. An unequalled work, this book will long endure - to be supplanted only by the ongoing investigations they call for. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Detailed but Confusing.......2007-05-28
Burt and Trivers have produced an encylopedic compilation of examples of selfish genetic elements. There is a wealth of information available in this book, but you have to work hard to wade through the authors' ambiguous wording, contradictory phrasing, utterly confusing tables and figures, and almost complete lack of follow-through on any of their ideas. This book is not for the general public. I read it with a group of professors and graduate students who focus on evolution, and we had a hard time getting through it.
Despite the problems with the book, I recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in this subject area. It's a great reference and source of ideas. It also provides a solid overview of what research has already been done and what remains to be conducted. Furthermore, it has some amazing examples of organisms with truly bizarre natural histories; those parts of the book are fascinating to read.
Overall, I'd say if you really think you'd be interested in this topic, buy the book. But be prepared to work hard while reading it, and expect to be frustrated with it on a regular basis.
Rich book but..........2007-02-24
The book is rich, brings several ideas and hypotheses but does not bother explain those ideas. There can be too much information in a chapter to be able to draw overall picture of the topic. Still, it is a good book to obtain.
Fascinating.......2006-02-23
The concept of a "selfish gene" has made its way into the popular and semi-popular press, and because of this has provoked many discussions in ethical circles as well as in the area known as evolutionary psychology. Some of these discussions attempt to set the record straight on just what biologists mean when they talk about selfish genes. This book could be considered part of these discussions, and offers the reader a fascinating account of the science behind what the authors call selfish genetic elements. The book however is not written for the popular audience, but instead assumes a strong background in genetics. However the authors have included a terminology section in the back of the book to assist non-experts in genetics (such as this reviewer). The authors are very careful to make distinctions between what is known about selfish genes and what constitutes speculation. For readers who still need more discussion over and above what the book gives, there is an extensive list of references included. In addition, the authors include a very detailed summary of the book in the last chapter.
Every page of this book is filled with interesting insights, and many questions are answered as well as raised. Some of the questions that this reviewer found interesting include:
1. What are the natures of genomic exclusion systems wherein chromosomes are discarded from one parent and transmit only those from the other parent?
2. Why did paternal genome loss (PGL) evolve? Was it because of bacterial endosymbionts manipulating the chromosomes of their hosts, and if so, what evidence is there for this? How common is PGL?
3. What is hybridogenesis and in what species does it occur? Why did it evolve?
4. Androgenesis is the loss of the maternal genome. How common is it and how risky is it for the species in which it occurs?
5. The chromosomal system of the fungus gnat is described in the book as the most complex of any organism. What is the nature of this complexity? And why do these gnats need such a complicated system?
6. Are there any species whose genome can benefit from outbreeding with closely related species?
7. How does a length of DNA distort its own transmission?
8. How fast do selfish genetic elements spread?
9. Can techniques from genetic engineering, such as transgenic strategies, suppress the spread of selfish genetic elements?
10. Can the spread of selfish genetic elements be suppressed by recombination?
11. What is the nature of segregation disorder? How did it evolve?
12. The t haplotype in mice spans one third of chromosome 17, making it very large. How is such a large section of DNA inherited? Why does it show drive in only one sex and what are the consequences of this?
13. What effects do selfish genetic elements have on the phenotype of the organism in which they occur?
14. What similarities are there between selfish genetic elements in terms of their genetic structure?
15. Can selfish genetic elements be created using techniques from genetic engineering?
16. What is the nature of maternal-effect dominant embryonic arrest (Medea)?
17. Why are maternal-effect killers more common than gamete killers?
18. Gametophyte factors are genes that act in the styles of plants in order to kill pollen in which they are absent. Why are they so prevalent?
19. Do killer X chromosomes ever cause species extinction?
20. In what species do killer Y-chromosomes occur?
21. Why is Y drive expected to cause more population extinction than X drive?
22. Why are killer sex chromosomes more prevalent in insects (dipterans) than mammals?
23. Why did meiotic sex chromosome inactivation evolve?
24. What is the nature of genomic imprinting? Why did it evolve?
25. Can genetic memory extend back for more than one generation?
26. Why do adult male chimeric mice possessing a large amount of parthenogenetic cells in their brains very aggressive towards other males?
27. Can imprinted genes affect brain function, and if so, what are the consequences of this for the organism?
28. Why do selfish mitochondrial genomes have a replication advantage over normal mitochondrial genomes in selection within organisms?
29. What evidence is there that uniparental inheritance evolved to prevent the spread of selfish mitochondria?
30. Why did doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) evolve in freshwater mussels?
31. Does DUI lead to more recombination, and therefore to more effective evolution?
32. What is cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) and how is it used in hybrid seed production in plants?
33. Homing endonuclease genes (HEG) can transfer between species. What advantages does this have for the persistence of these genes?
34. How are artificial HEGs used in genetic engineering?
35. Can selfish genetic elements be used to cure human diseases?
36. Transposable elements are described as being the most prevalent of the selfish genetic elements. What different types of transposable elements are there?
37. What are helitrons?
38. Why do DNA transposons persist for so long?
39. What evidence is there for the horizontal transmission of DNA transposons?
40. Are there any beneficial consequences of transposable element inserts?
41. About one-half of the mammalian genome is composed of transposable elements. What advantages does the genome have in possessing such a large number of transposable elements?
42. Large genomes have been shown to reduce the number of cells per unit brain size and the number of interconnections between them. What is the connection, if any, between selfish genetic elements and the intelligence of the organism?
43. Through more research of the type described in many parts of this book, will it be shown that every organism has some type of selfish genetic element? If some species lack selfish genetic elements, why do they have this property and what caused these elements to be suppressed in the course of evolution?
44. Do selfish genetic elements have any connection with determining sexual preferences in humans?
45. Can selfish genetic elements be induced by environmental or external pressures?
Trivers is back!.......2005-12-30
What a long strange trip it's been for Robert Trivers, who during the early 1970s was one of the most brilliant evolutionary theorists ever. Now, I'm happy to see he's back with a magisterial tome co-written with Austin Burt on "selfish genetic elements" that don't raise the Darwinian fitness of the organism as a whole, just of themselves, often at the expense of the overall life form.
As a crude analogy for what Trivers and Burt are describing, think of the Enron Corporation. Traditional economic theory, which bears many resemblances to traditional evolutionary theory, would conceive of that firm as an entity that competes against other firms for the good of its shareholders. Unfortunately, old fashioned economics did not prove an adequate guide to Enron's behavior because the firm was infested with "selfish managerial elements," executives who were looting the firm for their own selfish benefit.
Of course, developing a better understanding of Enron-like situations does not "refute" economics, just adds to its sophistication. Similarly, Trivers and Burt are adding to the explanatory power of Darwinism. Just as firms struggle to develop carrots such as stock options to to align individual managers' interests with the interests of the stockholders, and sticks to prevent embezzlement, organisms evolve responses to selfish genetic elements.
One quibble. I realize that this horse long ago left the barn, but Richard Dawkins' term "selfish gene" has caused a lot of misunderstanding among the public over the years. A better term might be "dynastic gene."
My Enron analogy can be misleading because what the "selfish genetic elements" are doing is not making themselves rich, per se, but contriving for copies of themselves to proliferate. The closest business analogy might be a firm damaged by nepotism, such as Wang Computer in the 1980s, where managers appoints their feckless relatives to important positions.
Book Description
Philosopher David Stove concludes in his hilarious and razor-sharp inquiry that Darwin's theory of evolution is a ridiculous slander on human beings. But wait! Stove is no creationist nor a proponent of so-called intelligent design. He is a theological skeptic who admits Darwin's great genius and acknowledges that the theory of natural selection is the most successful biological theory in history. But Stove also thinks that it is also one of the most overblown and gives a penetrating inventory of what he regards as the unbelievable claims of Darwinism. Darwinian Fairytales is a must-read book for people who want to really understand the issues behind the most hotly debated scientific controversy of our time.
Customer Reviews:
A skeptical, analytical philosopher takes on Darwin, Dawkins.......2007-10-02
"[Stove] is particularly good at exposing the `amazingly arrogant habit of Darwinians' of `blaming the fact, instead of blaming their theory' when they encounter contrary biological facts. Doctrinaire Darwinists have an answer for everything, always a bad sign in science, since it means that mere facts can never prove them wrong." - from Roger Kimball's Introduction
It is not at all the case that Stove objects to Darwinism on religious grounds, in fact he believes that present life has by some means evolved from earlier forms; however he is quite certain that "Darwin's explanation of evolution, even though it is . . . still the best one available, is not true." Stove would object, and strongly so, to having his essays cast as being sympathetic to `creationism' or `intelligent design', as he defines himself as a man "of no religion." His knowledge and scholarship of Darwinian theory is self-evidently vast; he suggests that he has "wasted" his time reading hundreds of Darwinism's books and `Darwinian Fairytales' makes it quite evident that he has indeed studied every prominent Darwinian "from 1859 to the present hour."
I had just begun reading Richard Dawkins' `The Blind Watchmaker' when I noticed that David Stove's `Darwinian Fairytales' had been reprinted. While reading them both it quickly seemed imperative that I read Dawkins' `The Selfish Gene' before proceeding with either TBW or DF. So that is what I did. Reading the three books in close conjunction was quite a fascinating experience, and, as I have indicated elsewhere (my review of TSG), Dawkins didn't fare to well.
Stove, the late Australian philosopher of science, effectively skewers Dawkins (especially TSG, but, to a lesser extent, TBW as well), Stove nails E.O. Wilson too, in fact he takes a troupe of Darwinian champions to the woodshed -- T.H. Huxley, R.D. Alexander, R. Trivers, R.A. Fisher, among many others. A skeptic in Hume's mold, Stove has acerbically critiqued various iconic founts of Western thought, some more effectively than others, so Darwinians need not feel singled out (but of course they probably will). This book was his last, completed not long before his death in 1994.
Although he presents a few other criticisms, Stove relentlessly targets (1) Darwinism's ideological death-struggle with "altruism" -- that it must deny is actually altruism, and (2) Darwinism's non-falsifiable teleological doctrine: the immutable Lordship of "the selfish gene" -- a doggedly fideistic article of simple faith. Darwinism's teachings on altruism are easily sacked, both by clear logic and by mere empirical evidence; its supposedly anti-teleological teleology of itself qualifies Darwinism as being a religion.
If there is something to be faulted in Stove's book (a collection of 11 essays), it is the repetitiveness (not surprising as this is usually a problem in works of argumentation). Long after he has defeated the teleological and "altruism" defamations of Dawkins, Wilson, and the like, he is still throwing the badly bloodied doctrines to the ground. Because of this, and because each of the essays can more or less stand on its own, I recommend reading the first essay (Darwin's Dilemma), the second and the last (eleventh) before heading into the others. If the essay (#4) treating the influence of Malthus' population dynamics on Darwin's thought becomes dry or uninteresting, then skip it, perhaps moving to essays #9 (A New Religion) or 10 (Paley's Revenge, or Purpose Regained).
This is not what I expected.......2007-05-13
I barely read into the book when I realized that the author is still a true believer of the Darwin fairy tale. It was painful for me to do, but I threw the book in the trash today. Next time I'll be more careful.
The H.L. Mencken of sociobiology.......2007-04-04
David Stove is one of the great underappreciated writers of the late 20th century. He's also dead, which doesn't generally do much for one's ability to slay dragons. It is fortunate the good people at the New Criterion have more or less sponsored his revival; he deserves to be much more widely known. Stove was an Australian academic philosopher who became embroiled in a university in-fight against what I like to call, the "know nothing academics" who came to prominence in the 1960s. Know nothings essentially make their livings making rasberry sounds at Western civilization. Stove was outraged such people could be taken seriously by anyone, and so he devoted a large amount of his considerable remaining wit and energy making such people miserable. This book represents one of his efforts in that direction. Contrary to what many people are saying in the reviews, Stove explicitly believes in Darwinian evolution, "more or less." I.e. he states that he believes in the broad strokes of evolutionary theory. He is, as others have stated, an atheist (as am I, if that matters to anyone).
He very specifically doesn't believe in nonsense views of evolution; in particular, the "hard man" view of Herbert Spencer or its intellectual descendant, the "selfish gene" view of Dawkins and company. Stove ruthlessly mocks the preposterous premises of these ideas (which even a 'good' Popperian would instantly recognize as non-falsifiable piffle), simply by examining them for what they really are. He also points out numerous giant conceptual lacunae, counterfactuals and the examples of flat out nonsense that make up the evidence for sociobiological "theory." Why does Stove do this? Apparently, he was ahead of his time. People like Dawkins have become pervasive pests; insisting that everyone think as he does, or risk being labeled, "unbright." Sociobiological 'theoretical' deconstructings of literature have become all the rage. Dawkins and his unseemly ilk need to be put in their place, along with other pseudo-scientific charlatans like Lysenko or the Phrenologists. Sociobiology is a shabby set of shaggy dog stories; Stove shows us how funny and absurd they really are. I rather wish Stove was a statistician as well; that would be the final cherry on top of the sociobiological humble pie, but I suppose one must leave work for future thinkers.
Stop misunderstanding texts!.......2007-04-02
This text does not attempt to show that Darwinism is false, at best it succeeds in showing that certain applications of the theory are incorrect.
Evolution is not a "religion for adults" - it is a complex theory that should not be debated by those who do not know it. Simply because there exist statements about the theory (or statements made by the proponents of the theory) that are perhaps false, does not mean the entire theory is.
Has anyone heard of Richard Dawkins? He clearly showed how evolution can and has created cooperative systems.
Everyone - please educate yourselves from a well-balanced mix of texts, understand what the author's points are, and more importantly, reason about what is said - there are authors that care more for the money made from publishing a book, than the honest science and research that should go into it.
enjoy the ride.......2007-02-07
Modern "scientists" have elevated evolution to a cult. Enter intelligent design (ID) critics, whacked on by their roots with creationists (their own pre-Socratics), and you have one helluva fight. With these ideologues migrating to extremism and away from reason as understood by both scientific method and Aristotelian logic you are bound to have very murky waters indeed. The debate becomes unrecognizable to the classically educated.
Enter the reasonable atheist apologist for no side with whom people of faith (like myself) and no faith (like my friends) can wholeheartedly cheer on by anchoring the conversation in reason once again. The late David Stove does just that, with precision, wit, logic, clarity, and joy. Reading this book is like a breath of fresh air, and restores faith in human reason and the ability of thinkers to expose unsupportable extremes cloaked in unearned authority, whether it is "science" or "religion." A marvellous book which will have ideologues steaming and truth lovers and sideline quarterbacks enjoying the game.
Book Description
The Simplest Path, Step One: Free Your Mind delineates, in one slim volume, a complete system for achieving personal spiritual awakening, along with a straightforward, no-nonsense plan individuals and groups so enlightened can follow to awaken Humanity en masse and positively transform the world. This book contains keys to awakening. Awakening from our personal dream shatters the solid "box" of limitation memes have built around our lives, and frees us to fluidly craft our personalities, environments, relationships, careers, etc. as an artist paints a landscape or a sculptor teases form from formless clay. All of us awakening together from the shared dream of the planet will mark the birth of our species out of our current global nightmare of decline into a limitless future literally beyond our present ability to imagine, even in our "wildest dreams," indeed.
Customer Reviews:
Way Beyond "Socrates Revisited".......2007-08-22
After reading the commentary attached to the one star rating given by the young man from Texas, I feel compelled to step forward in defense of this very fine book. With only one exception, every point made in that negative review is simply wrong. Just not factually correct. The reviewer identifies himself as a young man (... "to my young mind"), and since all of his other Amazon reviews are of TV episodes on DVD, video games and rock music CDs I take him at his word. Well, I am an "old man," closing in on my sixty-third birthday, and I came to Mr. Casspriano's book after six decades of life experience, the last three of those decades a zealous practitioner of Zen Buddhism. I say this not to "brag," but simply to qualify myself as a reviewer before beginning.
I'll start where the one star reviewer closed his argument, with his statement that the simplest path reduces to two Socratic concepts: "Admit that you don't know anything" and "know yourself."
The first part is nominally true (the exception). Like Zen Buddhism, a central tenet of the simplest path is working to release the false notion we all hold that we know ourselves, other people, the world around us. But identifying and releasing our attachments to our illusions is a life's work, not some brash "I don't know nothin'!" as the young Texan seems to imply. Under normal circumstances, we go about our daily lives with no idea we are deluded about anything, as Maya (the illusion of the phenomenal world around and even inside us) is so convincing that most of us never even think to question its validity. Casspriano did not invent the notion of human beings being trapped in illusion, as this truth was known to the timeless authors of the Hindu Vedas and is central to all schools of Buddhism (not just Zen). But his scientific/spiritual exploration of the mechanism by which Maya ensnares our minds and can, with effort, be overcome is among the best "plain English" explanations of this process I have read. There is no "inscrutable mystery" in the simplest path (a criticism that has been accurately leveled toward Zen Buddhism, as a lot of Eastern thought truly does come off as "inscrutable" when translated into English and/or the metaphors of Western culture). Casspriano lays out in no-nonsense American English exactly what our brains are doing when they create the illusion we mistake for reality, then shows the reader in the same clear terms how to train his or her brain to break free of illusion and taste reality as-it-is. In just 216 pages, that is no mean feat. After thirty years of Zen practice and numerous kensho experiences (of varying depths and intensities), I can say from personal experience that Casspriano is correct. Enlightenment comes as the fruit of a long, incremental process of retraining the mind to touch reality in a new way, and the process described in the simplest path is the same as that followed in Zen practice, especially Rienzi Zen koan study (I'll have more to say about this in a later paragraph). Casspriano's approach and language is very different from traditional Zen (more "scientific," and no sitting meditation is required), which I think would appeal to Americans and other Westerners seeking to experience "awakening" without necessarily committing themselves to a religion like Buddhism, but the internal mental/spiritual process and final destination are the same.
"Know yourself," on the other hand, is not in this book at all, at least not in the way the young reviewer, or Socrates for that matter, uses the phrase. As in Buddhism, Casspriano takes pains to demonstrate that "self" is as much of an illusion as our misapprehension of the phenomenal world, and is a byproduct of exactly the same mind process that creates outer Maya. A core teaching of Buddhism is that our "self," our personality/ego, is nothing more than an aggregation of outside influences that cluster together in our minds like shiny stones gathered into a pile, and which we mistake not only for something "real," but tragically, for our essential selves. Yet this "pile" has nothing really to do with who we are at all. Buddhism teaches "no-self." Belief in the illusion of a unique and independent "self" is our greatest obstacle to enlightenment. Wasting time and energy getting to "know yourself" in the Western sense is foreign to Eastern thought. Casspriano again does a great job of translating the Buddhist concept of "no-self" into Western scientific/spiritual terminology. He shows the process by which our ego/personality aggregate "piles up," as well as how to take the pile down, stone by stone. Enlightenment is what the pile was covering up, and so it naturally appears as soon as the pile is removed - but oh how we cling to our personal pile of stones! "Self" is what we must trade for enlightenment, what must be surrendered, and Casspriano returns to this truth many times in the simplest path. My point is that the one star reviewer's reduction of the simplest path to "know yourself" has no basis at all in the actual book.
As to the book being "gimmicky": Yes, the words "The Simplest Path" recur frequently throughout the book, but not in reference to the book itself (at least that's not how I took it), but rather to the system of understanding the mind and working toward "awakening" Casspriano is describing - and it is a complete system that deserves to be considered as a whole, on its own. At times the repetition does have a feel of "branding" in the commercial sense, so I understand where the reviewer may have taken his impression. But the simplest path, while resonant with Zen Buddhism (and apparently, according to Casspriano, with the Toltec philosophy espoused by Carlos Castaneda, of which I have no personal knowledge, so I'll have to take the author's word for that) is far enough different that it needs its own "name" to set it apart from other schools of similar but not identical thought. The reviewer's criticism is like saying that every use of the term "Zen" in a book called "Zen Buddhism" should be taken as a reference to the book, and not to the larger practice of Zen Buddhism as a spiritual discipline that the book is describing. Casspriano's point in repeatedly linking The Simplest Path, Zen Buddhism and Toltec Shamanism throughout the book, at least as I understood it, is to highlight these three spiritual practices as related reliable paths through a dark forest of illusion, a forest in which many apparent (and more popular) paths, including most (all?) religious beliefs, actively vie to mislead travelers toward deeper ensnarement in the dream, rather than leading them toward "awakening."
I want to say a word about koan study in Rienzi Zen and how it relates to the simplest path. Koans are those quirky Zen sayings and stories like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" or "what was your original face before you (or your parents) were born?" that have no rational answer, and which Zen students turn and turn in their minds like the tumblers of a combination lock until their imprisoned psyches "explode" in a "super-rational" experience of reality beyond the illusion ("irrational" would be the wrong term, as that implies "nonsense"). That "super-rational" vision of reality is called "kensho." I have experienced it myself, more than once in my lifetime. I have come to think of Casspriano's "Key Questions" in the second half of the simplest path, especially the later seven of the ten, as "cultural koans" designed to trigger "collective kensho" for the whole human race at once. Like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?", unflinching consideration of the value of human life, of how our beliefs about the future shape the present, of the true origin and destiny of life on Earth, etc., especially as seen through the lens of Casspriano's "Key Question Technique," reveals that none of these questions have rational answers, yet all require our active and immediate response. Successful resolution of these larger riddles that impact everyone will require us all to eventually "explode" into reality, together, in a "super-rational" way. We'll have to break through the illusion and wake up together, as one (which has been the goal of Mahayana Buddhism, of which Zen is a sect, since around 200 BCE). That is the "Planetary Awakening" addressed in this book, and I believe Casspriano's "Key Questions" are a concrete step in that direction. I'm glad I spent my fifteen dollars.
This is my "old man" take on the simplest path, having encountered it after 30 years of Zen Buddhist practice (I'm not veering off my chosen path here, just bowing respectfully in passing toward Casspriano's). From a Buddhist perspective, the simplest path is true Dharma, though I do not get the impression from reading his book that Vincent Casspriano is himself a Buddhist or a follower of any religion. That to my mind makes his book all the more interesting.
True, but gimmicky.......2007-08-09
Casspriano's book is scientifically and philosophically sound as best as my young mind can tell, but I don't recommend this book. Its scattered with numerous pages of advertising about how his "program" works and how it compares to other religions and spiritual movements. Why must this author physically write out "The Simplest Path" in reference to his book every other page, and talk about his second volume? Perhaps because he's not out for pure truth, but for our money.
All this book comes down to after you strip away the nonsense is two things. First, admit that you don't truly know anything. Second, know yourself. Do those two things (they essentially both mean to question EVERYTHING), and you'll have Casspriano's "Planetary Awakening," with 15 bucks still in your pocket. And you'll be following the fundamental truths already said by Socrates.. so do yourself a favor and pick up Plato's "Apology" and read up on the Socratic dialogue on how to live a good life. And don't stop there, because you can't be sure he's right.
And I have 10 bucks that says these other couple of reviews were written by the book publisher. In any case, ignore the hype.
A Unique and Inspiring Wake-up Call.......2007-05-15
This is one of the most clear-headed books I've read in years on the subject of real, nitty gritty, get your hands dirty spiritual development (as opposed to the fru fru New Age variety). So much of what passes for "spirituality" in our time amounts to some author, celebrity, priest, philosopher or self-appointed guru telling us what to "believe," sight unseen, if we want to reach heaven, attain enlightenment, achieve "ascension," etc. Casspriano takes an at times startling opposite approach. For Casspriano, such unquestioned/unquestionable beliefs are not only NOT the path to spiritual awakening, they represent the chief obstacle blocking our realization of higher consciousness. And it's not just religious beliefs ("faith") he's talking about, but all our beliefs about reality, especially those that enclose our thinking in "boxes" that limit our freedom to find solutions to real-world threats like Peak Oil, overpopulation, Global Warming, etc. Though much of the book focuses on individual enlightenment, for Casspriano, these larger planetary issues are "spiritual," as well. Whether the issue is our personal inability to find happiness or Humanity's collective rush toward physical extinction, the cause is the same - our wrong-headed beliefs about what's real. The solution is the same, as well - continuous, deep questioning. Using Richard Dawkins' concept of "memes" as a central metaphor, Casspriano first breaks down the basic process of belief, showing the mechanism in our brains by which beliefs misdirect and control our psyches, then he walks the reader through an exploration of a series of ten "anti-meme questions" aimed at breaking down the walls of our mental "boxes" and setting our minds free. With each question, he supplies an exercise designed to allow the reader to attain a personal taste of reality "beyond the box," especially as flavored by that chapter's "Key Question." For the most part, this formula works very well (with a few rare moments of over-exuberance on the author's part, as already described in other reviews, though as a card carrying vegan environmentalist, I can't say I particularly minded), delivering a cumulative series of death-blows to some of the most basic "pillars" of our present human consensus reality. Beyond the walls those pillars supported lies real reality, where we are all interconnected and interdependent, and, in Casspriano's view, mutually destined for greatness, if we can just wake up and grab the reins of our runaway culture in time. This is not a book for spiritual "feel gooders" seeking soft assurances that they're perfect just they way they are and everything's going to be all right, no matter what. This is a wake up call, a tool kit and a concrete action plan for becoming individually enlightened and collectively saving the world, all rolled up into one. That, I think, is a cause well-worthy of exuberance.
Challenge Consensus Reality!.......2007-05-10
This is a thoughtful book that addresses how we may go about developing a process to question our everyday consensus reality. I suppose if I have learned anything in 49 years of life, it is that all personal and social problems stem from our fundamental views on the nature of reality itself. Vincent Casspriano uses the concept of a "meme" as a fundamental unit of ideas, assumptions, etc. that often block our understanding of reality itself. One such meme, for example, may be that we have to "fight for our freedom" or the world's a "fearful" place and hence, we have to be ready to kill to protect ourselves. I suppose you could also use the word "paradigm" here as well, but the essential point of this book is that we "unconsciously" function in our life with many limited points of view that block our ability to solve problems on both a personal and a social basis.
While Vince Casspriano is to be congradulated for producing a book that presents both a methodology and a motivation for personal transformation, there are a few pitfalls here that the potential reader should be aware of before tackling this material. The author has some rather strong views on fossil fuel consumption, meet consumption, and the role of humans in the cycle of procreation. While I generally agree with his analysis on fossil fuel consumtion and meat consumption (as I have viewed large tracks of deforrested grazing land in developing countries), these viewpoints can distract the reader from the essential point here which is to rigourously question consensus reality. Since I am single, and have no motivation to have children, I definitely disagree with his views on the necessity of human procreation on this planet, but here again, it is important to extract the essential meaning rather than get caught in the specific political/social debates that these issues may spawn.
If you are serious about personal transformation with the potential for changing our global consciousness, than this book can be an invaluable tool. I do agree with the Author that a world population of "high functioning" people can resolve every planetary problem we face today. As we systematically question our consensus reality, we will see our problems in new ways, and with this new perspective, problems can often be quickly resolved or transcended.
A Simple Cure For What's "Eating Us".......2006-11-13
I considered titling this review, "Stop Whining, Wake Up and Get Busy Saving the World," but decided "Eating Us" would be more attention-grabbing - which matters because I believe Vincent Casspriano, Jr.'s "The Simplest Path, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND" is an important book, and I want to do whatever I can to draw your attention to it. Pick the title you like best. Both very fittingly describe what you will find within the pages of this remarkable new release from New Paradigm Press.
I have selected three short quotations to explore in this review that I think best summarize Casspriano's overall message:
From Chapter One, "The Boxes We Dream In":
"Right now, this very moment, you are asleep... Even if you are reading these words in broad daylight - sitting at your desk or beside the kitchen table, your feet firmly planted on the floor, eyes open, senses alert, feeling the weight of this book in your hands as sounds of life rise and fall rhythmically around you - you are deeply asleep, and dreaming furiously"
Now, the idea that Humans are sleeping, and must therefore "awaken," is by no means unique to Casspriano's "Simplest Path" spiritual system, being the root observation underlying pretty much all Eastern religion, and a lot of Western Occultism and New Age metaphysics, as well. In fairness, Casspriano makes no claim to this as an original insight, openly supporting his assessment of the human predicament with quotations taken from Animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. He then flows seamlessly into a list of complementary illustrations from the secular realms of Quantum Physics, brain/consciousness research, and most to-the-point, the study of memes and memetics, ala Evolutionary Biologist and world's best-known cheerleader for scientific atheism, Richard Dawkins.
If you've never heard of memes or memetics, a quick Google of those terms will reveal hundreds of serious, information-rich websites devoted to this now thirty-year old science. In a nutshell, a "meme" is a sort of contagious thought-form that spreads between people by way of imitation. Obvious memes in our environment include advertising jingles, fads and fashions, etc. Casspriano somewhat radically extends the concept to include just about everything that makes up the contents of our individual brains and shared human culture. While he resists redefining the word "meme" wholesale, he decidedly expands its definition to make memes and "memeplexes" (what you get when a number of memes band together into an organic, relational unit, like a religion or cultural or political movement) the basic, fundamental building blocks of everything we habitually label "real..."
And then he demonstrates, in at times excruciating detail, the complete emptiness of the "apparent-reality" that is a byproduct of memetic activity in our brains. What we call "real" is not real at all. It's an illusion spun up by our memes. And our memes are not original to us. They are "viral invaders" assailing our minds from without. Worse - and, while even this thought is not wholly unique to Casspriano, he certainly gives it his own very effective spin - memes are by no means mere passive beliefs or simple "harmless ideas." They are, Casspriano believes, actively predatory psychic parasites whose survival depends on our buying into the illusions they create in our minds. Think of illusion (Samsara, Maya, etc.) as a web we're caught in. Memes are the spider. We are the fly. Gotcha.
One thing I like very much about Casspriano's book is that he never asks us to take anything on faith, least of all this rather ugly depiction of the human psychic/spiritual condition. He not only challenges readers to test his hypothesis firsthand in order to experience what is real and true for ourselves, he spends a large chunk of the book outlining specific exercises anyone can do to escape memetic interference and personally experience reality as-it-is. The exercises in Part II of the book are powerful medicine... But this is a digression, so let me return to the point.
Memes are the spider, and we are the fly. A better metaphor might be that memes are the farmer, and we are the cow. Domesticated and docile, we allow memes to milk us daily, to extract from our minds the potent human psychic energy which, if reclaimed by us and put to proper human use, would quickly and positively transform our lives and our world. This transformation is awakening, ascension, enlightenment, metanoia, the Buddha-like change of consciousness most religions and spiritual systems on Earth hint at, but few ever actually deliver to followers. In this analysis, Casspriano's "Simplest Path" is very much in line with Gurdjieff's "Fourth Way," Carlos Castaneda's Toltec sorcery, and a few other well known spiritual practices inhabiting a somewhat darker, though perhaps more realistic corner of the New Age. But unlike most of those other systems, Casspriano's prescription for escaping illusion and awakening to reality is remarkably, well... simple.
From Chapter Three, "Waking Up":
"The simple truth is that we are sleeping because we lack sufficient energy to wake up."
And later in the same chapter:
"The real work that brings about awakening, rather than merely granting the external appearance of "being spiritual," while actually embroiling us ever more deeply in the dream, is a rigorous, daily commitment to the identification and elimination of every self-serving belief from which our personal dream-lives are constructed."
For "belief" in the quotation above, read "meme/memeplex." Casspriano certainly does, treating the terms as largely interchangeable. In the end, this genuinely simple - at least in the sense of being uncomplicated and pragmatic - spiritual practice amounts to discovering reality as-it-actually-is less by searching for a glimpse beyond the illusion, than by systematically withdrawing our participation in, and identification with, the dream. When we disentangle our psyches from memetic illusion, only reality remains. We don't have to chase it; to a meme-free mind, reality just appears. This is "Satori" in Zen Buddhism. This is "stopping the world" in the Toltec sorcery of Castaneda and others. Casspriano's genius lies in his talent for exposing the core mechanism behind such complex and often inscrutable spiritual systems, and for putting into plain language clear instructions for unraveling the dream and achieving personal awakening. The virus-like process by which memes take over and control our human minds, as described by Casspriano is, to my mind, very complicated (but well worth struggling through). What is genuinely simple about "The Simplest Path," however, is Casspriano's prescription for breaking those bonds, once you've made the effort to understand how they are created and maintained. For Casspriano, remaining a victim of spiritual sleep and energetic exploitation by memes is a complex activity in which we unconsciously invest enormous amounts of psychic energy every day of our lives. Awakening is the product of a simple act of withdrawing that investment, which automatically re-energizes of our minds and lives. Or as Casspriano cleverly phrases it when closing Chapter Three, "Waking Up":
"Unweave the tapestry of the dream, and awakening happens."
Anyone can do this. Spiritual awakening, in Casspriano's view, may be hard work, but it is not complicated work. The path to enlightenment is really rather shockingly simple. Fall out of love with the dream. Reclaim your psychic energy. Wake up to reality.
The ten "Key Questions" Casspriano explores in the second section of the book are designed to put the theory laid out in Part I to practical and immediate use. Essentially, I think Casspriano sees these ten issues - why we treat enlightenment as an "airy-fairy" ideal instead of a measurable transformation of brain functioning, the excuses we make for avoiding personal responsibility and integrity along the lines of Castaneda's "impeccability," the fallacy of belief in a "separate self," etc. - as pillars of both our personal and collective human dreams. They are by no means an exhaustive listing of the memes twisting our minds. But they are primary keystones on which layers upon layers of the grand illusion are built. Topple these ten baseline pillars and the larger structure crumbles.
Casspriano explores some "Keys" more successfully than others. One downside to the book is that, especially in the "Keys," Casspriano's own memetic prejudices shine at times rather glaringly through, as when, in his discussion of the American "What Would Jesus Do?" religious fad, he characterizes the Evangelical Christian purveyors of WWJD as, "ultra-conservative, right wing ideologues." Even should the reader personally agree with such pronouncements, its hard to resist thinking, "Hey Vince! Your memes are showing!" But where he nails his point, Casspriano's prose can be downright inspiring, as with the "Key" cosmological study "Is Earth the Center of the Universe?," which explores the gap between what we know, scientifically, about the Universe and what our daily choices and behavior says we really believe, about the cosmos and about ourselves. His closing "Key" "Are We Alone?" so poetically frames the true stakes of our global human predicament - species survival VS extinction - that its hard to imagine anyone keeping their gaze glued squarely to their own self-involved navel in the wake of reading it. Of course we are not alone. There are six and a half billion of us on Planet Earth, and whether we awaken to what's best in us or follow our darkest drives over History's cliff into oblivion, we do so as one. One planet, one fate.
This notion of "oneness" and of a common, intertwined human spiritual and biological destiny is a core theme in The Simplest Path, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND that sets it apart from any spiritual book in recent memory. My final quotation from the book returns us to the opening lines of Chapter One, "The Boxes We Dream In":
"We are all aware of the challenges facing us as we enter together into the 21st Century:
· World oil supplies are running out.
· Global warming is transforming the Earth into a steamy greenhouse.
· Even as our technology connects the world, ideological extremism, terrorism and militarism divide us as never before.
· Headlines bombard us with news of war, famine, pestilence and death until we feel overwhelmed and unable to respond.
· Time is running out..."
Vincent Casspriano, Jr.'s "The Simplest Path to Personal and Planetary Transformation, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND" does not offer easy escape from these very pressing real-world human ills, but rather, a down to Earth, workable prescription for their cure. Yes, we must awaken as individuals, and, rest assured, "The Simplest Path" shows spiritual seekers exactly how to do that. But a prime message of "The Simplest Path" is that, for personal awakening to have meaning, it must occur within the context of a complete re-visioning of global culture, and a mass wrenching away of the wheel of History from the control of viral memes, that we might create a common cosmic human destiny worthy of our highest potential as a species.
Now that's a meme worth feeding.
Book Description
A major refutation of the almighty status of genes in evolution and human behavior.
Over the last thirty years, many scientists have come to insist that our behavior is governed by our genes—above all when it comes to sex, which, we are told, is how genes perpetuate themselves.
Not so, argues evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge in this powerful book. Sex certainly seems to us more complicated than a matter of our DNA struggling to survive, and that's because it is. Eldredge directly confronts those who would cast us as puppets of biological imperatives rooted deep in our hunter-gatherer past. Their models, he points out, are based on lower forms of life. In humans, there is an intricate interplay between meeting our needs for day-to-day survival, sex, and reproduction ("the human triangle")—further complicated by cultural forces (customs, laws) that routinely override selfish-gene behavior.
Authoritative and delightfully combative, Why We Do It challenges us to rethink the assumptions of today's science in the important task of understanding ourselves.
Customer Reviews:
The seat of power.......2005-11-23
This book is initially confusing because Eldredge says he is trying to balance genes and environment when, as we read the book, he is really trying to demolish genes entirely.
For a book that is meant to be about sex it is strikingly odd that the clearest manifestation of genetic influences - ie the differences between the sexes - is hardly acknowledged.
Eldredge says that sex in humans is about power and self-esteem but if this were so then the most promiscuous women and prostitutes would be the most powerful people and have the most self-esteem. He also says that humanity has an insatiable desire for pornography. No, Niles, only men do. Without acknowledging these sex differences he can then ignore the significance of reproduction and the 'selfish gene'.
He avoids considering, for example, how the avoidance of inbreeding leads to different groupings of animals within the same species. Sometimes males will do much of their living alone or in an all-male group which cannot be accounted for in economic terms.
That these males will also risk injury or death to join a breeding group rather than just enjoy living itself should tell us that reproduction is not merely a side-effect of living as Eldredge says. Though we need to be alive to reproduce many males and females damage their own 'living' in order to reproduce.
And there can't be many mammalian mothers on the planet who aren't offended by the idea that reproduction is a mere side-effect of living! And does Eldredge really believe squirrels produce baby squirrels as food for foxes??!! That animals do what they do mostly to keep the local ecology going?!
As for humans decoupling sex from reproduction, lets face it, human males never really wanted it coupled in the first place.! Mating is ok but not what comes next. And very few males throughout nature experience any reproductive costs following mating so it should not surprise us if human males feel it is 'natural' to maximise numbers of matings but to use contracepton - preferably by the female so as not to interfere with his potency of course - so as to avoid the known consequences.
As long as a male body is 'mating' it is achieving its reproductive goal. Only the female body 'knows' whether it is reproducing or not, the male body can never really 'know'. It simply reacts to fertility signals - in human females these can be permanent signals just as strong as if they were sporting swollen, pink behinds. Human females have concealed ovulation not by never looking fertile but by always looking, or trying to look, fertile.
Even Eldredge's rape argument is not that support-worthy. Everyone agrees that violent stranger rape is abhorrent. The problem with rape is that the vast majority are far from this. Rape needs to be investigated in an evolutionary context that incorporates the clear differences between the sexes and how human societies view female mate choice.
For Darwin's contemporaries female mate choice was almost an incomprehensible concept. For much of the world today it still is - or it is something that societies do much to prevent as it smells too much to men as infidelity in wives or the wife's sexual refusal of her husband. Hence the widespread practice of controls such as purdah or female genital mutilation - or simple obedience to the husband. Female mate choice, of which rape is one aspect, is a problem for males, and consequently for females, of many species.
Some males, and often the human male, will use resources to seduce females. Perhaps this is why for Eldredge economics seems so much more important than reproduction. Perhaps his 'simply living' is more about the male perspective (not that acquiring resources isn't essential for females too)- more about the male mating effort rather than the female parenting effort. But how we experience being alive and our environment is very different depending on whether we are male or female and this is clearly about the active input of genes.
BUT Eldredge at one point says that a vasectomy 'for most men strikes too close to the seat of power'. So he does, at least subconsciously, know where the power source is - ie in the place where genes are replicated and transported into the next generation. He has to avoid becoming fully conscious of this fact so that he can sustain his view that genes don't matter and the environment is all powerful.
I can appreciate that for political reasons Eldredge may feel compelled to try to make an argument that the engine that drives everything is the environment. But even he recognises on some level where 'the seat of power' really is.
An emotional response to evolutionary psychology.......2005-03-27
This is an attack on what Eldredge calls "ultra-Darwinism" and what he imagines is "selfish gene biology." The main problem in the first instance is that no such animal as "ultra-Darwinism" exists (it's just a slur); and in the second he is tilting against the windmill of a metaphor.
Richard Dawkins, celebrated author of The Selfish Gene (1976), is well aware that genes are not "selfish" in a literal sense. Furthermore, nearly everybody knows that genes work in concert with the environment to shape our biology and our behavior. Indeed, there is nary an evolutionary biologist outside of Bob Jones University who thinks that some kind of endowment, fixed or otherwise, is the exclusive determinate of who we are.
But Eldredge seems unaware of the modern understanding. Not only is he tilting at windmills, he is setting up and trying to knock down straw men that don't exist. Let's look at some of his accusations.
He wants us to know that the drive to eat and stay alive is more fundamental that the drive to reproduce. He calls this the primacy of economics over sex. This is fine, but I know of no evolutionary biologist, anthropologist or sociobiologist who thinks otherwise. They do not mistake the blueprint for the building. Of course in the mass culture a simplistic imbibing of Darwinism and a literal grokking of the metaphor of the selfish gene does exist. It is therefore perhaps a shame that some of this book does not appear in say People Magazine to set the general public straight.
Eldredge notes that reproduction is NOT the purpose of life and posits the existential view that if life has a purpose "it is simply to live." (p. 46) But "purpose" is entirely an anthropomorphic notion and has no place in evolutionary biological thinking.
He wants to emphasize the cooperative nature of organisms as opposed to the idea that nature is competitive. He writes that "overt, no-holds-barred competition in the mating arena is, in the last analysis, relatively rare." And then on the very same page (66) he more or less contradicts himself by writing that male birds "stake out a territory (usually constantly defended against intruding males)..." Note that even using such ideas as "defended" ushers us into the land of metaphor. The birds actually react instinctively to the close proximity of other males and try to chase them away. WE think they are "defending territory."
Eldredge is saying that the males are not fighting over females or sex but are holding onto valuable real estate--that is, their behavior is economic and not sexual. In a nut shell this is his point: life is lived primarily as an economic venture. What counts is getting enough to eat while avoiding life's many pitfalls. He believes it is a mistake to go further and add that the purpose of these behaviors is to reproduce. Again the bugaboo here is that word "purpose." The truth is that all organisms once they have secured the necessities of life try to reproduce. This is NOT the same thing as saying that is their "purpose."
What I especially dislike however is not Eldredge's insistence on what should be obvious, but the surly manner in which he attempts to dismiss certain of his colleagues and his attempt to ridicule ideas he either doesn't understand or thinks are being applied too broadly. His dismissive labeling--"hard-core evolutionary genetics," p. 130; E. O. Wilson's "consilience gambit" (why is it a "gambit"?) p. 249, "ultra-Darwinism," etc.--cannot stand for cogent argument. Particularly offensive is his repetition of what he calls "the Pleistocene cop-out." His argument here is that evolutionary psychologists explain current human behavior in terms of what worked on the savannas of Africa during the period of evolutionary adaptation. What he attempts to show is that our behaviors are culturally directed and not dances choreographed by genetic puppeteers. The truth is our behaviors are the product of both cultural and genetic influences working in concert.
Nonetheless our genetic heritage IS in no small part the product of our experience during the Pleistocene, and it is part of the genius of evolutionary psychology to recognize this fact. Curiously Eldredge reveals that he understands this because on page 190 he writes (referring to Olduvai Gorge in East Africa), "It is the last best vestige of the environment that produced us, giving us insight into the very conditions in which our bodies--and behaviors--were shaped by evolution." That is pure evo psych, but apparently what Eldredge appreciates on one page is not always evident on another!
This is not to say that this book is without merit. Very well done is Eldredge's answer to the idea that rape is evolutionarily adaptive. (It is not: it is socially abhorrent for one thing; and since we are social animals, the rapist's behavior has met and will continue to meet with the severe disapprobation of society to the rapist's reproductive detriment.)
Also very much worth reading is Eldredge's exploration of infanticide and his explanation for its near universal practice throughout human history--although his point that it is not adaptive in an evolutionary sense is flawed. Sometimes it is better to have fewer children so that the ones we do have gain our full economic attention. The fact that this was often achieved through infanticide does not alter that general argument.
It is a shame that Eldredge's emotional need to discredit evolutionary psychology mars what could have been a useful exercise. He should have concentrated on arguments against rape as an evolutionary adaptation and eschewed the mistaken and gratuitous attacks on his colleagues. His general concern that those not expert in evolutionary biology sometimes overrate the genetic human endowment and underrate the cultural influence is a good one; but this point has to be made without straw men and ad hominem attacks, otherwise the author loses credibility and begins to sound more like a radio talk show host than a reputable scientist.
"WWDI" Genetic Enlightenment on Sex, Mores & Having Babies.......2005-03-11
"Why We Do It:..." by Niles Eldredge, NY: W.W.Norton & Co., 2004 - ISBN 0-393-05082-3-hc,(5.5" x 8.25") 269 Pg., includes Notes & Index.
Author of 4 previous books on evolution, Eldredge is a real-life contemporary of Stephen J Gould, & certainly writes convincingly, knowingly on evolutionary biology & denounces Richard Dawkins of "The Selfish Gene" hypothesis (a really hot topicfor 2 decades). Eldredge, emphasizing "decoupling" of Sex from Reproduction, then probes interacting controlling factors influencing the Sex-Economics-Reproduction Triangle.
Table of Contents has 12 Chapters in Parts I-III (Duality of Life, Human Singularities, & Human Triangle). There are, happily, 22 pages of Notes & 11 Pg. Index. Amazingly, Eldredge discourses on - "Evolution throughout the species, altruism, Darwinism, Ultra-Darwinism, sexual & asexual reproduction, AIDS, birth rates & birth control, cancer, SIDS, puberty, Dolly (clone), soma(tic)/germ-line cells, infanticide, rapes, sexual slavery, bonobos, vervet ("green") monkeys, genocide, social systems & social 'norms', prostitution, mores, food-for-sex, sex-for-food, "making babies", and a whole lot more.
"WWDI" displays Eldredge's insightful reasoning skills as he delivers a powerful story about evolutionary genetics in easy to read pose that features meaningful witticisms, and an enviable knowledge of "pop" culture of the rich & poor in lands near & far. He writes with assuredness we associate with SJ Gould & bolsters arguements with facts & tantalizing snipits of information which gives life to his exposition. Although I have a background in genetics & sociology, it is not necessary to have such background to understand & appreciate the merits of this book. I was enlightened by this charming book wherein the author was able to tie so many loose ends together - & you'll enjoy this book as much as I did, so do read it...
Unstructured rant.......2004-10-18
The author is his own worst enemy. I would love to get into his argument, but the entire book is poorly structured and has the taste of a religious rant. Chapters give an illusion of order. By page 40 he has said all he had to say, over and over again at every possible opportunity. I have reached half way and am finding it difficult to motivate myself to continue. The stream of conciousness style and repetition makes for heavy going and little new hard material seems to come. I am especially irritated because I got it in hardback and it wasn't cheap. Catchy title, though.
PS: Just finished the book. It didn't get better. Towards the end, the author even ridiculed a colleague in the field by name! This sort of thing is out of place in a publicly published work.
I admit to being a layman when it comes to genetics, so I enjoy the occasional book to widen my horizons. But in this case, I feel I have stumbled into one side of a private quarrel between erudite gentlemen and am somewhat embarrassed. It is one of the few books I have thrown away.
Persistent phrases and polemics.......2004-09-23
This book is an embarrassment. Using the most misconstrued phrase in biology - "selfish gene" - as a foundation, Eldredge constructs the flimsiest of straw edifices. The structure, named "evolutionary biology" is then subjected to ritual ranting and vituperation. The denunciation focusses on the false idols of Richard Dawkins and Edward O. Wilson. The chorus of the chant is "ultra-Darwinism" - a meaningless term incomprehensibly still in use after a generation without definition. The theme of the exorcism is "economics". In countering what he sees as an established dogma of sex drive and reproduction motivating evolution, Eldredge asserts that all life pivots around its economic environment - food and other resources. How are these obtained, retained and controlled by organisms?
The significant organisms, however, aren't elephants or magpies or scurrying mice. They're humans. This canon of the Gould-Lewontin-Eldredge cabal - keep humans separated from evolution's process - has long been a mainstay. For a book supposedly unveiling the mysteries of evolution's long progression, Eldredge skims over other life in his haste to explain humanity. And he valiantly struggles to do that, but with a novel approach - he focusses on exceptions. In Eldredge's view, the economic foundation of natural selection is manifested in various cultural norms. Not all of these are pleasant, of course. Chinese and Indian cultures weed out daughters [or potential ones] to reduce family costs. To Eldredge, this somehow refutes the notion of DNA's drive to reproduce itself.
An underlying agenda in this book is the long-standing ambition to ease Darwin from centre stage in postulating how evolution works. Darwin fostered "gradualism" and Eldredge was part of the team advocating "punk eek" - the notion that species would reach a state of equilibrium before a "punctuation event" initiated a new type. Darwin wrote of "sexual selection" - almost forecasting how "selfish genes" worked. Eldredge will have none of it, instead postulating that resource demands lead to change. An unfortunate offshoot of his approach is the justification for humans savaging the environment in response to their genetic economic drive. This, of course, is Eldredge's way of undercutting Edward O. Wilson's hopeful proposal of "Consilience" as a means of increasing our knowledge and protecting the biosphere.
Even books intended for general audiences usually include some further reading recommendations. Eldredge can't be bothered with this chore, except for some sketchy entries in his Notes section. His immediate targets are but scantily represented. The true culprits of overstressing the "selfish gene" concept turn out to be media writers, not established researchers. To the initiated, his use of Gabriel Dover in demolishing "ultra-Darwinism" will come as a jolt. This blemish is only one pimple in a deeply flawed and misconceived work. Eldredge fans will rejoice [as will certain anti-conservationists] at this book. Those who've watched the growing wealth of information on animal behaviour, however, will only wonder at his grim tenacity in holding to false concepts. [stephen a. haines, Ottawa, Canada]
Book Description
The Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene explores the relationship of biology and culture in the evolution of human behavior. Building upon several of the theoretical issues he first addressed in Man's Way, renowned anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt presents a unique look at how human culture functions through biological mechanisms that have evolved from our distant past. "Affect hunger"--the need for affective expressions from others--underlies nurturance and mutuality. Goldschmidt contends that affect hunger--in combination with other factors unique to the human species--in effect "trumps" the selfish gene and is therefore the essential missing key to understanding human behavior. Employing discussions of primate behavior, ethnographies, cognitive studies, psychological research, and hormonal and neurological studies, he demonstrates how affect hunger not only provides a reward system for learning language and other cultural information, but also remains a motive for social behavior throughout life. Transforming the debate on nature versus culture to one on nature and culture, The Bridge to Humanity provides a fresh perspective on the ways that biology and culture fit together. Indeed, in this book Goldschmidt reinterprets anthropological knowledge, profoundly affecting all students concerned with human behavior and reaching far beyond the discipline's borders.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent meta-view of human evolution.......2006-05-02
In this book, Goldschmidt, an emeritus anthropologist, pulls together several strands of scientific work on genetics and cognition into a view of human evolution that provides some deep insights into what makes us human. One of the primary insights that he builds on is the recent discovery of mirror neurons, which allow us to learn through observation. Goldschmidt's idea that the evolution of language and tool making are related is also a valuable one. But most important is his overarching idea that affect hunger is the source of culture; that it is a biological need, yet one that connects us with others, and therefore encourages the cooperation and empathy that makes culture and civilzation possible.
Book Description
In a well-blended presentation, writings from more than 30 scientists and science writers span scales from the biosphere to the cell to DNA, encompass disciplines from global ecology to behavior and genetics, and explore links between biology and philosophy.
Connie Barlow is a science writer.
Customer Reviews:
From planetary entity to mighty molecules.......2002-06-07
Few scientific ideas have gained as much interest and acclaim as James Lovelock's suggestion of Gaia - the entire Earth views as a single organism. Connie Barlow's own reaction is as good an example as any, stating she could return to a childhood feeling of "science as nature which had been utterly quenched by schooling in science as facts." That dichotomy is the theme of this fine collection of essays - is the Gaia thesis viable, or has "science as fact" overthrown it? Barlow has assembled a strong group of authors to present for us to help in forming our own judgments. Even better, the list of works she draws from or points to allow each of us to delve into the subjects with open eyes, and, one hopes, open minds.
The title of the book imparts its structure, working from the grand picture to finer detailed areas. Barlow begins the collection with Lovelock's own definition of the Gaia concept - "the biosphere is a self-regulating entity." He ties his image to historical roots as well as scientific findings. Reminding us that "even scientists, who are notorious for their indecent curiosity, shy away from defining life," Lovelock is able to define Gaia beyond the normal environment we consider the realm of life. "Gaia," he says, "is a total planetary being." As Barlow notes in her afterword to Lovelock's presentation, "some scientists . . . have wholeheartedly begun the search for Gaian mechanisms."
Although not an outspoken supporter, Lewis Thomas, well known for his commentaries on science, is described by Barlow as viewing "the Earth's atmosphere in a Gaian sort of way." A stronger form of support is presented through the career of Lynn Margulis. research in how a cell is constructed and how that structure evolved was forced into a wholly new way of thinking by Margulis. Her detailed cell research led her to propose that many organelles within the cell are the result of ancient symbiotic relationships. Strongly opposed for several years, her theories are now the consensus view of cell evolution. Barlow sees the idea as a foundation stone for the Gaia hypothesis. Previously unrecognized alliances are now a major part of biological research, and Barlow includes several descriptive essays on this
phenomenon.
A Gaian organism requires a discernible structure, according to Barlow. Arthur Koestler is used to introduce how hierarchical structures are perceived in nature. Instead of tedious labeling of sub- after sub, Koestler introduces the term "holon" to define these organizational elements. Any individual of any species may be a "holon," as may be any societal group. The term is implied in following essays on "systems" or "organized complexity." Various commentators are incorporated in Barlow's collection to explain how Gaia works as an entity instead of just a collection of life forms. Game theory is introduced as a major aspect of interaction and cooperation both among and between Gaia's components. For example, Edward O. Wilson's science of sociobiology provides a framework for explaining such concepts as altruism and aggression.
Opposing the Gaia thesis, since much of its popular appeal rests with those seeking greater respect for the environment, is often considered an assault on "motherhood." Barlow uses three outspoken critics of Wilson to introduce alternate views. Richard Lewontin has derided sociobiology and its offshoots such as Lovelock's Gaia as "just-so" stories. Barlow draws on his writings attacking sociobiology as examples of "bad science." By projection, his criticisms must reach beyond societal species to the entire Gaian thesis. The ultimate, if indirect, challenge to Lovelock's idea is that of Richard Dawkins. Barlow uses citations from The Selfish Gene to show how life is based on the survival down many generations of the gene. Life, Dawkins demonstrates, functions on gene replication. Hence, Gaia, which has no genetic root, cannot be a viable "organism" as postulated by Lovelock. Barlow cites Dawkins' analysis of the evolution of consciousness as "the most powerful passages" in the book.
In an interesting innovation, Barlow concludes the book with some "update" essays by some of the contributors. Margulis, Wilson, John Maynard Smith and others, are given the opportunity to amplify on Barlow's selections. The final submissions are nearly as valuable as the ones she originally used. Her own final essay is an excellent summation and provides a suggestion that the views are perhaps not as disparate as a superficial look might indicate. Superficial this book is not. An outstanding collection and starting point for further reading,
this book is highly recommended.
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The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Selfish Genes and Christian Ethics: Theological And Ethical Reflections on Evolutionary Biology
Neil Messer
Manufacturer: SCM Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins
Manufacturer: The Scientific Book Club/Oxford Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JMECOO |
Books:
- The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
- The Structure of Evolutionary Theory
- The Tinkerer's Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself
- The Voyage of the Beagle: Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches (Penguin Classics)
- Water and the Search for Life on Mars (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration)
- Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (Science Masters)
- Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (Science Masters)
- Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul
- Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
- Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
Books Index
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The God Delusion
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The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
Letter to a Christian Nation
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
