Horwood Beer-Master wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:...Selling my books is against my religion!

I'm glad it's not against everybody's, I got my copys of both The Selfish Gene and Climbing Mount Improbable from a second-hand bookstore in Buxton.

Heathen-enabler!

Paula wrote:

z8000783 wrote:

Paula wrote:Right, I just need to finish the (crap) book i'm on at the mo. Does anyone ever start a book, know it's crap but kinda keep going anyway cos you want to know whodunnit? Gimme a few days.

What sound does prevarication make?

John

I didn't as for a year to think about it

Got it yet?

John

z8000783 wrote:

Paula wrote:

z8000783 wrote:

Paula wrote:Right, I just need to finish the (crap) book i'm on at the mo. Does anyone ever start a book, know it's crap but kinda keep going anyway cos you want to know whodunnit? Gimme a few days.

What sound does prevarication make?

John

I didn't as for a year to think about it

Got it yet?

John

Not yet, still finishing my other book. I'll be done by, possibly, Thursday

Meh.

John

Paula wrote:

z8000783 wrote:

Paula wrote:

z8000783 wrote:
What sound does prevarication make?

John

I didn't as for a year to think about it

Got it yet?

John

Not yet, still finishing my other book. I'll be done by, possibly, Thursday

You just want the lullz that'll go hand in hand with me reading this book don't you John?

Just gentle encouragement. I got it last week and am about 3 chapters in, it's not as technical as I remembered.

John

z8000783 wrote:Just gentle encouragement. I got it last week and am about 3 chapters in, it's not as technical as I remembered.

John

Ok, I'm sure I'll catch up with you when I start

You need to buy it first.

John

Spearthrower wrote:

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:

The_Piper wrote:I'm going to read it again if I still have it and follow the thread.

That's a good idea. It could be like our own little book club!

I've been meaning to read The Extended Phenotype for a while, so it might make a nice reintroduction and, if help's available, a chance to iron out some of the bits that I'm wooly about.

I personally rate it as Dawkins' most interesting book. It very much changes the way you look at the world around you.

I liked it very much as well, but compared to The Selfish Gene it was a lot more challenging for a lay reader like me. I think that for those of us who don't have any background in the biological sciences, starting with The Selfish Gene makes a lot of sense. Personally, I found it very accessible - I'm not saying it didn't require any effort, but the most difficult bit was putting it down to do other things!

z8000783 wrote:You need to buy it first.

John

I'll get it on my kindle, will take 2 seconds

I no longer have my copy on hand. I found the audiobook on Youtube, but the the accent is very distracting, I have to keep rewinding it.

katja z wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:

The_Piper wrote:I'm going to read it again if I still have it and follow the thread.

That's a good idea. It could be like our own little book club!

I've been meaning to read The Extended Phenotype for a while, so it might make a nice reintroduction and, if help's available, a chance to iron out some of the bits that I'm wooly about.

I personally rate it as Dawkins' most interesting book. It very much changes the way you look at the world around you.

I liked it very much as well, but compared to The Selfish Gene it was a lot more challenging for a lay reader like me. I think that for those of us who don't have any background in the biological sciences, starting with The Selfish Gene makes a lot of sense. Personally, I found it very accessible - I'm not saying it didn't require any effort, but the most difficult bit was putting it down to do other things!

I can very well imagine that a fair number of Dawkins' books are reasonably technical for a person without a background in Biology. Personally, I found parts of the Ancestor's Tale to be quite challenging - more so than either The Selfish Gene or Extended Phenotype, and that's with some knowledge of cladistics, speciation etc.

Paula wrote:

z8000783 wrote:You need to buy it first.

John

I'll get it on my kindle, will take 2 seconds

It will only take 2 seconds after you have bought it.

John

The_Piper wrote:I no longer have my copy on hand. I found the audiobook on Youtube, but the the accent is very distracting, I have to keep rewinding it.

What Richard Dawkins' and Lala Ward's accents distracting?
Maybe you found a sysnthesised speech version of the book - I have heard that one too - terrible.
If you are into audiobooks you can now get the version read by Richard Dawkins and Lala Ward.
I will be listening to it again in the car on my way to work and hope to join in this thread.

Paula, once you have got into the book please let us know if there is anything that you don't understand. I am sure that there's plenty of people on the forum that can explain any of the more complex ideas contained in the book.

halucigenia wrote:

The_Piper wrote:I no longer have my copy on hand. I found the audiobook on Youtube, but the the accent is very distracting, I have to keep rewinding it.

What Richard Dawkins' and Lala Ward's accents distracting?
Maybe you found a sysnthesised speech version of the book - I have heard that one too - terrible.
If you are into audiobooks you can now get the version read by Richard Dawkins and Lala Ward.
I will be listening to it again in the car on my way to work and hope to join in this thread.

Paula, once you have got into the book please let us know if there is anything that you don't understand. I am sure that there's plenty of people on the forum that can explain any of the more complex ideas contained in the book.

Yeah it's the Richard Dawkins version I'm talking about.
It's not too bad, I was half-joking. I did give up on it though.
My mother tells me her cassette audiobook is an American accent. It's the "free matter for the blind" version. (She's legally blind)
She's sending my book back though, I should have it soon.

So.

Are we starting yet or what?

Paula has to clean out the bathroom first.

John

epepke wrote:I'll try.

In the past, the individual was considered the unit of selection, a unit that lived or died or reproduced or didn't. There was a perceived problem with evolution. There are cases where individuals do things that are not to their evolutionary benefit as individuals, but they benefit those around them. This is sometimes called "altruism," but I think that's a bad word for it.

Mechanisms were proposed, where the population or group were the units of selection. That is, a group where this behavior happened was more likely to survive. However, the evidence for group selection turned out to be very week.

Enter the selfish gene. This refocuses on the idea that the gene is the unit of selection. Since genes tend to be spread out in populations due to interbreeding, perhaps it might be to the advantage of a gene that may cause one individual to sacrifice at the benefit of other individuals with the same gene The gene itself may survive better, even though occasionally, it doesn't in a particular individual.

Not quite.
There was a unit of selection debate in the 60s, but gene centrism contributed nothing to it (despite claims to that effect by Williams and Dawkins). Consider the following statement:
Evolution is the change of X in populations of Y.
Gene centrism states that X is always gene frequencies (using Williams definition of the gene). But the unit of selection debates that were going on at the time were about Y and I think the general reaction was "right answer, wrong question". It´s worth noting that TSG does have a fixed Y: it´s always the individual. This is something Dawkins later distanced himself from, later books have caveats that Y can be species as well (and evolution of evolvability requires it actually), and arguably it can be cells, too. There are sections where Dawkins glosses over the second half of the statement in TSG, but the notion of a population is of crucial importance to any formulation of population genetics of course.

It´s also worth noting that the gene in the selfish gene is the thing Williams defined, which is quite different from what molecular geneticists use and this usage is the more popular one as well. Dawkins doesn´t really discuss this in depth (and that´s IMHO a serious shortcomming of TSG), even though it has lead to severe misunderstandings. There´s certainly some literature, even technical literature, which has argued against gene centrism based on the other notion of what a gene is.

susu.exp wrote:... which has argued against gene centrism based on the other notion of what a gene is.

Which is?

John

Ok, I know I've not started the book yet. I have been busy with college stuff and my brain's a bit frazzled