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The most helpful favourable review
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
A scholarly exposition of "the long reach of the gene".
Firstly in reference to another review below, I think it is mean-spirited to give a negative review to a book you confess not to be capable of understanding! This book was marketed as the sequel to The Selfish Gene, and chronologically it certainly was. However, the book is far more scholarly in its approach and for that reason is different in tone from Dawkins' other...
Published on 13 Jun 2004 by Geoff Mather
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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
Warning: very different from The Selfish Gene
This summary is primarily aimed as a warning to readers of the Selfish Gene and other books by Dawmins who are expecting more elaboration on the same theme. This is not the intention of The Extended Phenotype. Instead this book is aimed squarely at professional biologists and other life sciences professionals. The book presents very few down-to-earth examples or...
Published on 11 Mar 2006
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
A scholarly exposition of "the long reach of the gene"., 13 Jun 2004
Firstly in reference to another review below, I think it is mean-spirited to give a negative review to a book you confess not to be capable of understanding!This book was marketed as the sequel to The Selfish Gene, and chronologically it certainly was. However, the book is far more scholarly in its approach and for that reason is different in tone from Dawkins' other major works. Dawkins states at the outset that he is writing primarily for the professional biologist, but that anyone who makes the effort may understand and enjoy the work (I paraphrase). This is true. With occasional reference to the helpful and educational glossary provided at the back of the book, I found it easy to make progress, to enjoy and to follow the arguments presented. I highly recommend this to all professionals, and to all others who may have read Dawkins' other works and feel ready to go deeper.
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42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
An interesting but challenging read, 8 Dec 2004
"The Extended Phenotype" is the 4th and most demanding of Richard Dawkins' books that I've read. I hadn't realized that it was aimed mainly at his professional colleagues so was surprised at the amount of concentration, hard thinking and puzzled head scratching required to work through it. But what a glow of satisfaction: to finish such a challenging book, feeling that most of it has made sense to me. Like his other books (the ones I've read: "The Selfish Gene", "The Blind Watchmaker" and "Unweaving The Rainbow"), it's beautifully clearly written, with most of the more esoteric terms defined in the glossary at the back of the book. Not all of the terms could be found there however and nor were many of those to be found in an ordinary dictionary. The book is not so self-contained as those aimed at the more 'popular science' end of the market - the ones that you can read from cover to cover without reaching for a dictionary or other source of clarification. That's why I can only claim to have understood *most* rather than *all* of the book.This book follows on from "The Selfish Gene" and in it, Dawkins argues that the phonotypic effects of genes do not stop at the limits of the organisms that carry them. He suggests, for example, that the phenotypic expression of beaver genes stretch right to the edges of the lakes formed by their dams and the genes of some parasites are expressed in their hosts. So a snail might behave in a manner that puts itself in harm's way because the fluke living inside it has, somehow, managed to modify the snail's behaviour for its own ends - say to continue its life cycle inside one of the snail's predators. That is to say, the snail's behaviour is maximizing the survival of fluke genes rather than snail genes. He puts it very succinctly: 'an animal's behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes "for" that behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing it.' There are plenty of other fascinating examples of this sort. There are chapters covering such intriguing areas as evolutionary 'arms races', 'outlaw' genes and 'jumping' genes. Good use is made of thought experiments to help to figure out how and why certain adaptations might have evolved. 'Outlaw' genes for instance, might try to cheat the system to get themselves replicated more than their alleles, so how can the rest of the genome fight back? I particularly liked the idea of the 'green-beard effect' whereby genes might make the organism (not necessarily a man) carrying them recognisable to other organisms carrying that gene so that all the organisms carrying the 'green beard' gene would be altruistic towards each other but not to non-green-bearded organisms. It's not the usual easy read. As the author points out, 'this book ... assumes that the reader has professional knowledge of evolutionary biology and its technical terms'. However, it's well worth the effort of struggling with it if you're interested in evolution and Richard Dawkins ideas about how it all works. If you've read "The Selfish Gene" and found it riveting, you'll probably enjoy this too.
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41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
Taking evolution one step further, 29 Feb 2000
What happens (evolutionary speaking) after genes surround themselves with enough flesh and bone to support their replication ? Well, Dawkins tries to answer that in this brilliant sequel to Selfish Gene. The arguments are well presented and the whole book is written in clear language. You don't have to be a geneticist to understand the book. So, if you've read Selfish Gene you should add Extended Phenotype to your collection. If not, first buy Selfish Gene, read it until it makes sense and then proceed to this book.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
excellent as always, 2 Aug 2005
As much as I love all Dawkins' books, this is probably my favourite. It explains how genes are not content to build organisms to ride around in - they also build structures like beaver dams, nests and so on, which are just as much an expression of genes as overtly biological traits and further perpetuate the genes' selfish 'desires'.This is a really good treatment of that subject - you are unlikely to find any better.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Difficult but eminently worthwhile, 29 Dec 2006
This is a long and difficult book, although not as long and difficult as it might be if it had been written by somebody without Richard Dawkins' gift for clarity of thought and expression.
The crux of Dawkins' thesis is expressed early on and much of what follows is a very detailed supporting argument. What he wants us to see is that the "selfish gene" has a reach that extends beyond the confines of the individual organism that houses the gene. The phenotype of our genes is the human organism in all its glory; however the extended phenotype of our genes is not only the human organism but part of the environment in which the organism finds itself. In other words, the gene has the power to influence not only our behavior but the behavior and structure of elements in the world in which we live.
This thesis is not as striking to me as it has been to many others mainly because I have studied Eastern religious views, and it is a tenant of such views that the distinction between ourselves (the "selfish organism," in Dawkins' terminology) and the environment is an artificial one, an illusion actually. We are part and parcel of all that is around us and within us, and the boundary of our skin is merely functional. We cannot be understood by looking at only our bodies. Dawkins makes the point that looking at a beaver and microscopically examining it and its genes is not sufficient to an understanding of what a beaver is. We have to also consider the dams that the beaver builds, the trees that it gnaws down and even the streams that it dams and turns into lakes.
Presenting a point of view somewhat at odds with that of Dawkins (and one that I think that Dawkins does not sufficiently appreciate) is Franklin M. Harold in his book, The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life (2001). He writes, "Organisms process matter and energy as well as information; each represents a dynamic node in a whirlpool of several currents, and self-reproduction is a property of the collective, not of genes.... DNA is a peculiar sort of software, that can only be correctly interpreted by its own unique hardware.... [S]ending aliens the genome of a cat is no substitute for sending the cat itself--complete with mice." (p. 221)
Dawkins tries to discount the view of those he calls "group selectionists" who see life from a "group benefit" viewpoint. Dawkins has, since writing this book, stepped back from this position to allow that some group selection may take place. I believe some day he may see the world not from a "selfish gene" point of view, and not from a "selfish organism" point of view, but from a "selfish ecosystem" perspective--well, more likely his successors will see this, since the work of a lifetime is not easily amended in one's later years.
Dawkins gives what he calls "our own 'central theorem' of the extended phenotype" on page 233: "An animal's behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes 'for' that behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing it."
This is a mouthful. Clearly we can say that the genes of the reed warbler code for behavior that benefits the genes of the cuckoo who has laid its egg in the warbler's nest. This is what Dawkins has in mind. But then arises the question, "how far afield can the phenotype extend?" Here Dawkins gets cautious and writes, "The farthest action at a distance I can think of is a matter of several miles." (p. 233) Note the chosen terminology, "action at a distance." This is from physics of course causing Dawkins to ask if there is "a sharp cut-off" of the genes' reach or "an inverse square law" at work?
It is here that I believe Dawkins has come so, so close to that which he will not see (or couldn't see then), namely that everything works toward an ecology and that the idea of selfish genes and selfish organisms is a limited view. In truth the reach of the genes should be governed by something like an inverse square law since humans are now reaching beyond the solar system.
When we look at such great distances we might want to credit the dreaded and verboten "group selection" that Dawkins is at pains to reject. Just as some see our earth as "Gaia," an organism itself, so too might we see those organisms that have the means to survive the destruction of the home planet by migrating to other planets as being selected by group as opposed to other groups who have no such ability. Planet A produces beings that extend beyond their solar system; planet B produces beings that do not. Both planets blow up. Who is "selected" by the (extended) environment and who is not?
Dawkins is one of the geniuses of science, and I don't mean to argue with the great insights he has brought to biology, but my point is that it is always something of an artificiality to speak of living systems as confined to one level of existence or expression. We may think of earth creatures as being completely separate from the rest of the universe, yet without the sun, 93 million miles away, we would not exist; and come a supernova even many light years away, we will be affected.
So all is one and one is all in some extended sense. And using the word "selfish" (as Dawkins knows) at any level of life is merely to be anthropomorphic.
Daniel Dennett, in a new afterword written in 1999, asks if this book is science or philosophy, and he answers both. I agree, and it is science and philosophy of the highest order, aimed equally at the professional and at the educated layperson.
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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
Warning: very different from The Selfish Gene, 11 Mar 2006
By A Customer
This summary is primarily aimed as a warning to readers of the Selfish Gene and other books by Dawmins who are expecting more elaboration on the same theme. This is not the intention of The Extended Phenotype. Instead this book is aimed squarely at professional biologists and other life sciences professionals. The book presents very few down-to-earth examples or interesting facts that would suprise a reader with basic knowledge in the area. The bulk of the book is Dawkins' attempt to advocate his point of view on the subject and he does this by quoting other scientists and arquing his case both with and against these other views. The reader is assumed to know these arguments in advance, and unless you're prepared to read the references, in detail, the majority of the book's content will be remain a mystery.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Worth it, 10 Jan 2005
They weren't kidding when they said that this book is a bit more scholarly than The Selfish Gene. But in a good way: you can be sure that this is really what Dawkins wanted to say rather than some editor's attempt to make it more "accessible". You don't need to be a professional biologist but it might be a good idea to keep one standing by.
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27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
The essentials of life's story, 15 Aug 2005
Biodiversity is more than a buzzword for ecologists. Variation gives life its grandeur, and Richard Dawkins gives us a description of the workings of variation. Fortunately, with a sharp mind and sharper wit, he has the ability to deliver this portrayal so that nearly everyone can understand it. That's not to say this book is an easy read. Although he delivers his narration as if sitting with you in a quiet study, you may still need to review his words more than once. That's not a challenge or a chore, it's a pleasure.Dawkins, unlike other science writers, is forthright in declaring his advocacy in writing this book. It's a refreshing start to his most serious effort. After publication of The Selfish Gene led to a storm of fatuous criticism, Extended Phenotype comes in response with more detail of how the gene manifests itself in the organism and its environment. It's clear that Dawkins' critics, who label him an "Ultra-Darwinist" [whatever that is] haven't read this book. His critics frequently argue that The Selfish Gene doesn't operate in a vacuum, but must deal within some kind of environment, from an individual cell to global scenarios. Dawkins deftly responds to critics in describing how genes rely on their environment for successful replication. If the replication doesn't survive in the environment it finds itself, then it, and perhaps its species, will die out. The child's favourite question, "why" is difficult enough for parents and teachers to answer. Yet, as thinking humans we've become trained to deal with that question nearly every context. So well drilled that we consider something for which that question has no answer to be suspicious if not insidious. Part of Dawkins presentation here reiterates that there is no "why" to either the process of evolution nor its results. It isn't predictable, inevitable or reasonable. It's a tough situation to cope with, but Dawkins describes the mechanism with such precision and clarity, we readily understand "how" if not "why" evolution works. We comprehend because Dawkins does such an outstanding job in presenting its mechanics. This edition carries three fine finales: Dawkins well thought out bibliography, a glossary, and most prized, indeed, an Afterword by Daniel C. Dennett. If any defense of this book is needed, Dennett is a peerless champion for the task. Dennett's capabilities in logical argument are superbly expressed here. As he's done elsewhere {Darwin's Dangerous Idea], Dennett mourns the lack of orginality and logic among Dawkins' critics. Excepting the more obstinate ones, these seem to be falling by the wayside. It's almost worthwhile reading Dennett's brief essay before starting Dawkins. It would be a gift to readers beyond measure if these two ever collaborated on a book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A great very accessible book on evolution, 9 Mar 2008
I read this one after the 30th anniversary of The Selfish Gene, and though Dawkins states in his intro that he regards this as his best work, I personally prefer the slightly expanded Selfish Gene which takes into account his extended phenotype theory. I guess one further point on this is that there is a lot of repetition between the material in the two works too! He also states that this is aimed at his academic colleagues rather than as a book for the layman but I found the science to be pretty straightforward and commonsense and only needed to check the glossary at the back for about half a dozen words. However, other than those points its pretty much faultless and the plot will keep you gripped to the bitter denoument... I'm certainly looking forward to the sequel!
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2 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
The Extended Phenotype, 3 Jan 2004
No doubt a scholarly book but, I agree with Daniel Dennett who wrote the afterword, it is 'for the professional biologist' of which I am not!
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