The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)
by Richard Dawkins
List Price:
Our Price: $10.13
You Save: $7.82 (44%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $8.09 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Richard DawkinsEdition: Paperback
Published: 1999-08-05
ISBN: 0192880519
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)
Book Review: Theory, without the distractions.
Summary: 4 Stars
TEP is primarily a technical treatise. It elaborates the implications of holding a Darwinian explanation for the diversity of life forms across and, most especially, through time. In detail, the reader is alerted to what is conceptually required for a Darwinian theory to be internally consistent, and for it then to be applicable to life as it is and as it has been.
Professor Dawkins persists in using the misleadingly emotive terminology from his previous best seller, The Selfish Gene. However, in TEP it is very much tempered and qualified. The picture he wishes to make vivid is from a vantage entirely remote from human concerns - it is at the level of molecules, and the complex systems which require copies of molecules to be made . From this perspective, to `survive' means to produce a copy, and to be `selfish' is likewise to be inclined towards such replication; the `struggle' to survive, by this account, is simply a tallying of the number of reproductions both across time, and through the generations. It is made clear that the `fighting' takes place between lineages, and hence over a much extended time frame, that is, `in evolutionary time'.
As the participants in this most undramatic of dramas are utterly bereft of any human attributes, the terms are spoken `innocently', that is without any suggestion that any extrapolations can be made from what goes on at the level of goo to the level of human interaction. TSG also claimed to speak innocently, but it protested its innocence in the face of a gale of rhetoric to the contrary - in TEP, the wind has, thankfully, settled.
TEP spends time undermining certain tenets previously central to Darwinian thinking. The notion that the individual organism works for its own reproductive ends is challenged in chapter four, `Arms races and manipulation'. Prioritizing the germ-line over the individual organism is a recurrent theme, perhaps made most stark in chapter six, `Organisms, Groups, and Memes: Replicators or Vehicles?'; here the central issues turn on Darwinian theory requiring a means by which variety is generated in the factors to be `selected', and a means by which these factors are replicated in succeeding generations - dealing with organisms and groups in turn, Dawkins explains troubles with their candidature. In regard groups, while he is not utterly inimicable to selection occurring at this level, he gives good reason to be skeptical that it could account for the development of complex organs and specializations. Oddly, with his own theory of memes he gives a paragraph of objections and these seem far more convincing than the theory itself.
The penultimate chapters expand on the concept of the title. By extending the phenotype, Professor Dawkins is again undermining the notion that the individual organism is the `level of resolution' which we should examine. The level at which forces of selection operate may better be conceived of as organisms plus their direct environmental effects; or, in virtue on focusing on the genetic germ-line, in might be better to focus on an extended lineage of related individuals. Where the limit is drawn is discussed, albeit vaguely, in terms of where there is discernable feedback to the reproductive success of the germ-line in question.
Finally, the author `rediscovers the organism'. The last chapter is, however, more of an invitation to question why life is organized at the level of individual organisms than a celebration of that fact. To ask such a question, once again the germ-line, or the level of the genetic replicator, is made basic.
In sum, TEP asks us to view the panoply of life from the perspective of replicating DNA, and it suggests that such a view helps to order and explain the events of myriad complexity and diversity which otherwise appear wonderful but beyond explanation. The story it tells is full of detail and complextiy itself, and it occurs at a scale of magnitude and a time frame and, ultimately, from a perspective which makes no comment on our actual lives. Remove the vestigial emotive words carried over from TSG, and the TEP stands clearly as an exposition of a technical scientific theory, and a good one at that.
Summary of The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)
By the best selling author of The Selfish Gene 'This entertaining and thought-provoking book is an excellent illustration of why the study of evolution is in such an exciting ferment these days.' Science 'The Extended Phenotype is a sequel to The Selfish Gene . . . he writes so clearly it could be understood by anyone prepared to make the effort' John Maynard Smith, London Review of Books 'Dawkins is quite incapable of being boring this characteristically brilliant and stimulating book is original and provocative throughout, and immensely enjoyable.' G. A. Parker, Heredity 'The extended phenotype is certainly a big idea and it is pressed hard in dramatic language.' Sydney Brenner, Nature 'Richard Dawkins, our most radical Darwinian thinker, is also our best science writer.' Douglas Adams 'Dawkins is a superb communicator. His books are some of the best books ever written on science.' Megan Tressider, Guardian 'Dawkins is a genius of science popularization.' Mark Ridley, The TimesGeneral Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Evolution
Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Designby Michael Shermer
Holt Paperbacks; Published: 2007-07-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.42
Price in other shops:
The Origin Of Speciesby Charles Darwin
Signet Classics; Published: 2003-09-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.37
Price in other shops:
The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)by Richard Dawkins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1999-08-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.13
Price in other shops:
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Authorby Richard Dawkins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2006-05-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.01
Price in other shops:
Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonderby Richard Dawkins
Mariner Books; Published: 2000-04-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.90
Price in other shops:
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolutionby Richard Dawkins
Mariner Books; Published: 2005-09-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenonby Daniel C. Dennett
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2007-02-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Lifeby Daniel C. Dennett
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1996-06-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.02
Price in other shops:
The God Delusionby Richard Dawkins
Mariner Books; Published: 2008-01-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View Of Life (Science Masters Series)by Richard Dawkins
Basic Books; Published: 1996-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.42
Price in other shops:
A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Loveby Richard Dawkins
Mariner Books; Published: 2004-10-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.69
Price in other shops:
Climbing Mount Improbableby Richard Dawkins
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 1997-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.41
Price in other shops:
Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonderby Richard Dawkins
Mariner Books; Published: 2000-04-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops:
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolutionby Richard Dawkins
Mariner Books; Published: 2005-09-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Designby Richard Dawkins
W. W. Norton; Published: 1996-09-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.56
Price in other shops:
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Authorby Richard Dawkins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2006-05-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.49
Price in other shops: