Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene was not predicted to be a success. Its initial print run, published this week in 1976, was just 5,000. It went on to sell millions, and is perhaps the most influential work of pop-science ever. For 50 years, it has been the go-to resource for the layperson seeking to understand evolution.
What accounts for its enduring power? Prof Dawkins’ central claim, that “we are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes” was provocative, stripping the messy stuff of human and other life down to a simple law. And yet the book is primarily concerned with proving that complex, selfless behaviour such as altruism in animals can emerge from these basic “selfish” drives, satisfyingly resolving an apparent paradox. Prof Dawkins – a zoologist by training – also succeeded in conjuring entertaining, vividly drawn vignettes of the lives of animals, from lions and ants to hawks and honeybees, to make his points.
Nevertheless, 50th anniversary celebrations have been somewhat muted. In an essay in the journal Nature, the historian of science Nathaniel Comfort suggests there is something almost malign about The Selfish Gene’s commitment to a simple kind of determinism.
There is certainly that and more to take issue with. Prof Dawkins fought publicly with eminent biologists such as Stephen Jay Gould about whether genes were the primary target of natural selection, rather than the individual organism or group – a legitimate clash between differing theories that was mirrored in the scientific literature. More quietly and damningly, many biologists bemoan the way the book seems to assume every trait is some kind of adaptation – hardly the textbook view, which has long recognised the role of randomness and chance in evolution. It also focuses almost exclusively on animals. And it is hard to read Prof Dawkins fresh, without the knowledge that the later books are repetitive and that his comments outside his field – including on feminism, disability and describing Islam as “the greatest force for evil in the world today” in 2013 – don’t suggest a great or sensitive thinker.
Perhaps the best way to read The Selfish Gene is alongside its critics. Prof Dawkins’ Oxford tutor Arthur Cain called it a young man’s book, pointedly suggesting that the author would come to regret or recant his most bombastic claims. Prof Dawkins never really did, but his intransigence brought out the best in his critics, from Prof Gould to Richard Lewontin or Hilary and Steven Rose. Read all together, it makes for a full and rollicking picture of modern evolutionary debate
It also remains a model of style. The philosopher John Dupré, no fan of Prof Dawkins’ scientific thought, nonetheless calls it a paradigmatic example of successful popular science writing. The book works on this level because it takes a point of view in a live scientific debate, and argues its side with engaging dash and zeal. Prof Dawkins is often too polemical, but most science writing tends to be heavily didactic, with little argument or rhetorical flourish. And it is possible to both inform and persuade: Sean Carroll’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful and Nick Lane’s The Vital Question take a similarly clear, provocative line.
The science has moved on, and The Selfish Gene has flaws. But any writer looking to supplant its place in the public imagination with a more capacious vision of evolution must reckon with the reasons for its long-running success. For all its problems, it remains a model of its genre.
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