The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins · first published 1976
51% recommend43% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Clear, well-written account of evolution from the gene's point of view, covering selection, kin selection, and game theory, and the origin of the term meme. Suits readers wanting a grounding in evolutionary thinking.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
As 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. Forty years later, its insights rema
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I like reading non fiction but a lot of it is like pop psychology with not a lot of informational content. I've picked up two books recently and I've learnt a lot : The Selfish Gene By Richard Dawkins The 10 Day MBA By Steven Silbiger There's very little fluff in these books and you learn something useful on almost every other page. I'd like to read more such books , especially…
on “Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?” ↗This article and the Overcoming Bias post it links to ("Better Babblers") remind me of when I was in high school and was reading stuff like Gödel, Escher, Bach and Dawkins's The Selfish Gene (the two first books I ordered after mom allowed me to use Amazon) while also learning online about Wittgenstein and statistical text generation (Markov chains). All this led to a kind of crisis of identity…
on “Humans who are not concentrating are not general intelligences” ↗Fantastic question. The selfish gene - for understanding human behavior Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - for understanding how to be content Debt, the first 5,000 years - for understanding money and finance from the ground up Wright Brothers…
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗* The Selfish Gene - our bodies are vessels for DNA as they travel through time. Also colony insects and birds are fascinating. * Thinking Fast and Slow - study after study shows that we exhibit so, so many cognitive biases,…
on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?” ↗…We must instead look at the behaviors and their resultant consequences. For those interested, there is a massive amount of knowledge on this subject. I would recommend beginning with Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, and intuitively working through the corollaries thereafter. Further reading can be found here [1]. 1. http://evolution-of-religion.com/ EDIT: Removed Wikipedia link as it wasn't very useful upon closer…
on “Ham on Nye: The high cost of “winning” an evolution/creation debate” ↗If this topic interests you, I recommend reading "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.
on “The Lurker: How a Virus Hid in Our Genome for Six Million Years (2013)” ↗…masterpiece. Didn't get the chance to finish it because of the pandemic and it got locked in the office but it appears he's managed to cram in an entire university course in one book. Biology and anatomy - "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins is brilliant entry point for people with limited knowledge on the subject. Chemistry - no idea, that's the one subject which I hated with a passion since I was a child. Very paradoxical,…
on “Ask HN: What, in your opinion, are the greatest and most useful textbooks?” ↗I know this is a little out of left field but I couldn't understand why anyone was Atheist until I read The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan... quickly followed by The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Those two books together crystallized in me what it could mean to have a world view absent of supernatural forces.
on “Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?” ↗…have debated religious people for hours and hours. I don't know any atheist who hasn't seriously evaluated his beliefs. My position is very close to the one of Richard Dawkins. Read his books (especially Selfish Gene and The God Delusion). The last book is not as confrontational as the title suggests. Dawkins has done a few programmes for the BBC, you can easily find them online. 3. There doesn't -need- to be an…
on “Why are geeks often atheist?” ↗…The Galaxy" - Douglas Adams "Animal Farm" - George Orwell "1984" - George Orwell "Lord of The Flies" - William Golding "Brave New World" - Aldous Huxley "Gulliver's Travels" - Jonathan Swift "The Selfish Gene" - Richard Dawkins
on “Ask HN: What are some good books?” ↗The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. It describes what science believes life to be, and it can be very upsetting. Understanding it, however, made me a more confident and happier person than I was before.
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind 2. The Selfish Gene 3. Podcast: Kings of Kings https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings... Each one of these were worth every minute of read/listen. Edit to add: The world around us feels like it…
on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗Richard Dawkins' "Selfish Gene" and "God Delusion" are excellent reads.
on “Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?” ↗…Actionable Gamification (Yu-Kai Chou) I invented the Modern Age (Richard Snow) Inside the tornado (Geoffrey Moore) Jony Ive (Leander Kahney) Sprint (Jake Knapp) The lean startup (Eric Ries) The selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins) Titan (Ron Chernow) The inevitable (Kevin Kelly) The Innovators (Walter Isaacson) Scrum (Jeff Sutherland) !Most if not all have an audio-book version! If you are in a startup…
on “Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?” ↗"The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins. This was a result of asking my Twitter friends to decide between this and Art of War for me, and this won overwhelmingly. It's been a great read so far, and I'm really looking forward to…
on “What are you reading?” ↗