The Selfish Gene: 50th Anniversary Edition

Dawkins's prose is lucid and powerful, his argument difficult to contend ... The Selfish Gene has attained its own literary and scientific immortality: as long as we study life, it will be read. * Adam Rutherford, The Observer * highly readable and entertaining ... exhilarating gene's-eye-view of life * Robert McCrum, The Observer * Books about science tend to fall into two categories: those that explain it to lay people in the hope of cultivating a wide readership, and those that try to persuade fellow scientists to support a new theory, usually with equations. Books that achieve both changing science and reaching the public are rare. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) was one. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is another. From the moment of its publication 40 years ago, it has been a sparkling best-seller and a scientific game-changer * Matt Ridley, Nature * Richard Dawkins' magnificent introduction to the world of popular science writing ... Punchy, elegant, self-righteous, devotional (at least in a Darwinian way), it showed that genetics was absorbing, challenging and important * Nick Spencer, The Tablet * A genuine cultural landmark of our time. * The Independent * This book should be read, can be read, by almost everyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution. * W. D. Hamilton, Science * Learned, witty, and very well written ... exhilaratingly good. * Sir Peter Medawar, The Spectator * The sort of popular science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius. * The New York Times * The elegantly written The Selfish Gene has inspired multiple generations, explaining and embellishing the most beautiful idea of biology. * Paul Nurse, Nobel Laureate and author of What is Life? * Richard Dawkins has an exceptional gift, not just to explain clearly but to bring out the marvel of the evolutionary process. * Richard Harries, author, broadcaster, and former Bishop of Oxford * Richard Dawkins's clear exposition and sparkling prose destined The Selfish Gene to be a classic when it came out fifty years ago. Many of its terms made it into our cultural vocabulary, and it allowed millions to understand the details of how evolution works and gives rise to the amazing diversity of life. Fifty years on, this updated edition is welcome not only to discuss new developments and ideas, but as an antidote to many of the misconceptions about evolution that still persist. It will be welcomed by generations both old and new. * Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel Laureate and author of Gene Machine and Why We Die * The Selfish Gene is as vivid, gripping, and relevant today as it was fifty years ago. Read it if you want to understand how evolution works. * John Krebs, Emeritus Professor of Biology, and former Principal of Jesus College, Oxford University * The Selfish Gene stands as one of the best nonfiction books of the two centuries it straddles. Fifty years later, this masterpiece deserves new readers and old re-readers. It is lucid, witty, and stylish, and its ideas, though superficially familiar, are subtle and profound. * Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now and Rationality * For fifty years, Dawkins has been the modern-day voice of Darwin, and The Selfish Gene will continue to play this role, educating and entertaining a wide readership about the powerful theory of evolution, as an explanation of the natural world, including ourselves. * Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University * You won't find a better explanation of the logic of natural selection than The Selfish Gene. * Alan Grafen, Professor of Theoretical Biology, St John's College, Oxford * Dawkins's Selfish Gene variously startled, confronted, and sometimes disquieted its first readers, but in doing so educated them all, and has continued to educate readers to this day-not just in the science it explains with such elegance and clarity, but in the important philosophical implications that follow from it. It is a classic and should be required reading everywhere. * A. C. Grayling, author of The History of Philosophy and The God Argument *