Selfish Genius

Fern Elsdon-Baker has written The Selfish Genius (How Richard Dawkins Rewrote Darwin’s Legacy) to challenge Dawkins’ fiercely atheistic and intolerant version of Darwin’s evolutionary theories.  I approached this book with some mixed feelings: Darwin is a hero of mine, one of the very few thinkers who have genuinely reshaped our perceptions and understanding of our world (with Newton, Einstein, Adam Smith), and an engagingly nervous and hesitant one.  Dawkins, too, I have immensely admired for books like The Blind Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene (spot the pun in the title of Elsdon-Baker’s book), but I have felt uncomfortable at the violence and exclusion of his atheism (though I too am an atheist), and I have found his interpretations of evolutionary adaptation too severe, too unlikely to be acceptable, much preferring the more measured, richer approach of Stephen Jay Gould (an even better writer and, if the Nobel judges are to be believed, a better biologist too).

So I approached this book with interest, and with mixed feelings.  On some points, I was quickly reassured – the author is not favouring any half-cocked evolution theory, and she is not trying to merge evolution and religion in any way.  She staunchly defends evolution through natural selection, and declares herself without religious belief.  So what is the book about, in that case?  Well, she wants to make it clear that Dawkins’ view of evolution is just one view, and that others – eg, that of Gould – are perfectly credible, and the existence of differences do not threaten the fundamental validity of the theory, just raise questions over its details. 

Specifically, Dawkins believes that selection takes place at the level of the gene, whereas others wonder if it might be at the group level, or even the species level;  Dawkins believes in a broadly continuous process, whereas Gould supports a view called “punctuated equilibrium”, a term which is pretty much self-explanatory; and Dawkins tends to believe that all attributes of the phenotype must have been positively selected for (including your ginger hair and the ability to wiggle your ears), whereas Gould and others allow for some to arise by chance or as a by-product of some more useful attribute.  Well, this is all good and true, but we knew it already, and you can read many other books to find it much more fully explored and generally better expressed.

She is also concerned that Dawkins' violence with language is unnecessary, gives the impression that scientists know more than we do, gives fuel to opponents of evolution like the utterly discredited creationism and intelligent design, and can also alienate those who have religious belief, but are still sensible supporters of evolution, Christian and Muslim alike (the two religions she talks about mainly).  Well, I agree with her there – I find Dawkins' ideas wonderfully stimulating and brilliantly expressed, but I increasingly recoil from his violence of view and his bullying partisanship. 

So the book serves a useful purpose, and is worth reading; an annoying omission is any form of index, which would really be useful.  But the organisation is a little odd, with discursions into the theory of knowledge, for example, and not enough on evolution itself, and the prose is a little wooden.  She tries to skewer Dawkins for crimes against the philosophy of science, which is slightly tedious, and I suspect Dawkins wouldn't care - but she does roundly rebuke him for misleading some of us, and antagonishing others. If you are at all familiar with the state of current thinking on evolution, even at a non-technical level, you will learn little and might find other texts more valuable  - Dawkins himself (The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker), or any number of Gould essays (try a collection like The Flamingo's Smile) or a range of general reader books such as Steve Jones’ Almost Like A Whale (a lovely, easy, entertaining book) or The Language of the Genes.

Comments

[John]

Jerry, In terms of evidence he called Madeleine Bunting an Ignoramus, he calls some other evolutionists as belonging to the 'Neville Chamerlain school of evolutionists'. He also said Rabbi Shumley Boteach shrieked like Hitler. We could go on. It's detailed in the book if you are intersted in a chapter called the Sword of Rhetoric.

[Dark Puss]

Let me second Lindsay's comment about Gould and add to the list of civilised writers on careful science such luminaries as Murray Gell-Mann and Frank Close.

[Lindsay]

Sylvia - I slightly disagree only with your final comment - Gould is immensely civilized, a great scientist, a wonderful writer, and a best-seller! I'm sure you've read him, but just in case ...

Thanks for reading and commenting!

[Lindsay]

Well, I agree with Dawkins on evolution and religion, and I have often found him toe curlingly shrill and insensitive, but I guess this is all about individuals' personal taste as to what's acceptable. I see from recent articles and reviews of his latest book - pretty well received, even by those who haven't liked all his work - that he is moderating his approach. So maybe even he agrees he's been a bit over the top sometimes? None of that takes away from his brilliance as an evolutionist or a communicator.

[Jerry]

This piece is yet another endorsement of the myth put about, mostly by faitheists, that Dawkins is "shrill", "violent", "partisan" etc. Please give examples, because I've been following his career very closely for many years now and have found him to be consistently polite, fair-minded, even-handed and reasonable. All he does, his only "sin", is to refuse to afford to religion the blind respect that it has traditionally been given. He holds it up to scrutiny, as a good scientist should.

[Sylvia]

Thanks for the review. I'll have to check this book out. I'm a biologist and a Catholic, and Dawkins drives me nuts both as a scientist and person of faith. I think he actually does harm to the cause of evolution by being such a jerk. He's not much of an advertisement for Humanism. Worst of all he sets an example that many are eagerly following. The last thing we need in this world is more animosity. Alas, having a civilized conversation based on careful science doesn't sell books or attract a devoted following.