books books Why the resistance? David Penny Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think by Alan Grafen and Mark Ridley (eds) Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK 304 pp, $25/£13 ISBN 0199291160 Thirty years after its public a t i o n , R i c h a r d Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene still “provokes admiration, astonishment, and rage”, in the words of Randolph Nesse. In R i c h a r d Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think, the book’s anniversary is celebrated in a volume of essays brought together by editors Alan Grafen and Mark Ridley. According to Nesse, admiration is from the lucid prose, astonishment from the startling ideas, but why the enduring rage? Not from the descriptions of genes themselves, but from the implications that humans must be basically selfish, even though it is usually advantageous to cooperate—thus, the “selfish cooperators”. This collection of essays from leading scientists, philosophers and writers testifies that the selfish gene is alive and well, and still challenging any naive assumptions of scientists and non-scientists alike. The Selfish Gene and its successors are examples of a special category of books with a strong scientific message that is appreciated by scientists, academics and informed citizens. This new book, Richard Dawkins, appeals to the same broad readership. The essays are refreshingly personal, and the authors write honestly about their reactions to The Selfish Gene. Andrew Read describes: “I learned that most of the criticisms
[The Selfish Gene] attracted were intellectually boring or, worse, stupid … this was the only show in town.” Kim Sterelny comments on “our [human] paradoxical mix of astute intelligence, and blindness to the obvious”, or why humans are “simultaneously so smart and so dumb” in explaining their beliefs. The authors spell out their responses to The Selfish Gene, search for good metaphors to explain concepts, and describe any differences between their opinions and Dawkins’; there is no hiding behind layers on layers of footnotes. This direct style, typical of Dawkins himself, makes Richard Dawkins both powerful and entertaining. Each essay usually has enough detail both to see the principles and to understand the background reasoning. For example, when discussing animal communication, John Krebs reports that it had been suggested that, when threatened, animals send warning signals for ‘the good of the species’. But why not run away and hide instead? This first explanation was then revised, and it became accepted that animals sent a message to ‘manipulate’ the receiver into taking action. The recipient is alerted to the ‘honesty’ of the message by the fact that its transmission puts the sender at risk by alerting a predator to their whereabouts—a so-called ‘cost of signalling’. Kin selection will favour sending the signal, although it might also require the punishment of individuals who fail to send appropriate warnings. Humans encounter the same phenomena every day with computer spam. Millions of e-mail messages are sent at no cost to the distributor, but greatly inconvenience the recipients and can disrupt communication networks. If e-mails cost even a few cents each, then spam would become prohibitively expensive and we would be left with only ‘honest’ messages. Dawkins claims that the principles of evolutionary biology are universally true: if astrobiologists ever find life elsewhere in the universe, it will follow the same principles as on Earth. A strong claim! In Richard Dawkins, several authors complain (rightly) of the reluctance to apply Darwinian ideas fully to human behaviour—in Alan Grafen’s words, as if “the Second Law of Thermodynamics was universally true,
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except when applied to humans”. Krebs suggests an “emergency Dawkins service” when coming across such thinking in the academic community, or when hearing comments such as “our family does not believe in science.” Read complains that the lack of knowledge of mainstream evolutionary theory is leading to vaccination strategies that will encourage the selection of more virulent strains of pathogens (see Gandon et al (2001) Imperfect vaccines and the evolution of pathogen virulence. Nature 414: 751–756). Is this consequence desirable, or should we consider alternative strategies? Religion, one of Dawkins’ favourite targets, is discussed by several authors. Whether the human race can survive the ‘dark side’ of religion—the belief that belief is important—is still unknown. Today, religion and avian flu seem to compete for the opportunity to kill the largest number of people. During the past few decades, religious beliefs have prompted the mass murder of civilians in many locations around the world. We have public health campaigns to highlight the dangers of influenza; perhaps we need to educate the public about the potential dangers of the dark side of religion. Any molecular biologist who has not read The Selfish Gene should do so, and will thoroughly enjoy Richard Dawkins as well. Readers may ask why they received so little of this material as a core part of their education. Why is there so much resistance to mainstream evolution? We are happy to teach the descriptive part of evolution, but omitting hardcore evolutionary theory is like teaching chemistry without the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As some authors point out in Richard Dawkins, there really is no intermediate position: you either accept the universal principles of mainstream evolution, or you wander around in an intellectual wasteland.
David Penny is a theoretical biologist in the Allen Wilson Center for Molecular Ecology and Evolution at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand. E-mail:
[email protected] doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400805
EMBO reports VOL 7 | NO 10 | 2006 9 7 5
