The Selfish Gene

by Dawkins, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780192860927
• ISBN10: 0192860925
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1990-10-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Science need not be dull and bogged down by jargon, as Richard Dawkinsproves in this entertaining look at evolution. The themes he takes up are theconcepts of altruistic and selfish behaviour; the genetical definition ofselfish interest; the evolution of aggressive behaviour; kinship theory; sexratio theory; reciprocal altruism; deceit; and the natural selection of sexdifferences.'Should be read, can be read by almost anyone. It describes with great skill anew face of the theory of evolution.' W.D. Hamilton, Science

Author Biography

The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins is the first holder of Oxford's newly endowed Charles Simonyi Professorship of Public Understanding of Science. Born in Nairobi of British parents, Richard Dawkins was educated at Oxford and did his doctorate under the Nobel-prizewinning ethologist Niko Tinbergen. From 1967 to 1969 he was an Assistant Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, then he returned to Oxford as University Lecturer (later Reader) and a Fellow of New College, before taking up his present position in 1995. Richard Dawkins's bestselling books have played a significant role in the renaissance of science book publishing for a general audience. The Selfish Gene (1976; second edition 1989) was followed by The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), and Unweaving the Rainbow (1998). He has won many literary and scientific awards, including the 1987 Royal Society of Literature Award, the 1990 Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the 1994 Nakayama Prize for Human Science, and the 1997 International Cosmos Prize.

Table of Contents

Preface to 1976 edn

Preface to 1989 edn

Why are people?

The replicators

Immortal coils

The gene machine

Aggression: stability and the selfish machine

Genesmanship

Family planning

Battle of the generations

Battle of the sexes

You scratch my back, I'll ride on yours

Memes: the new replicators

Nice guys finish first

The long reach of the gene Endnotes Updated bibliography Index and key to bibliography

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