Who recommends it
- The Best Books on EvolutionReading list
The Selfish Gene is a book about evolution. More specifically, it is about how evolution works at the level of genes. Dawkins argues that the driving force of evolution is not the individual organism, but rather the gene. This may seem like a small distinction, but it has important implications for our understanding…
- Philosophy Books for BeginnersReading list
I’m not sure I would still uphold many of the substantial views defended in Dawkins’ classic. But it’s certainly the first book I would recommend to someone who wants to understand the logic and power of natural selection. It is no accident that more than a million copies have been sold.
- Tamler SommersInterview
Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot made me want to be a writer and later a philosopher. I read The Moral Animal by Robert Wright and The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins in my mid-twenties and they inspired me to go back to school.
- Sam GuglaniInterview
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I read this when I was 17, studying for my Biology A’ Level and applying to medical school. It blew me away then, in its rendition of life and – whatever disparate arguments there are now around Dawkins ideas – the presentation of tectonic forces and layers beneath the pedestrian…
- Daron AcemogluInterview
This is a really hard question. It would depend on when I was doing it. I think in terms of sheer amount of new material I learned from a single book, nothing could top Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, so perhaps that would be a nice gift for myself.
- Michael ShermerInterview
No one book has had that much impact, but I would say The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan, The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould, and The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins influenced my thinking about science in my 20s and 30s and still resonate today.
Often recommended alongside
Guns, Germs and Steel
Mortal QuestionsMore books by Richard Dawkins our guests recommend
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