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Reddit mentions of The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author

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Reddit mentions: 74

We found 74 Reddit mentions of The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author. Here are the top ones.

The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
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Found 74 comments on The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author:

u/Reputedly · 25 pointsr/Foodforthought
  1. The Bible: Eh. I can sort of get behind this, but not for the reason he gives. The Bible's just really culturally important. I also wouldn't bother reading all of it. When I reread the Bible it's normally just Genesis, Exodus, the Gospels, and Eccelesiastes. A lot of it (especially Leviticus) is just tedious. The prophets are fun but I wouldn't call them essential.

  2. The System of the World: Newton intentionally wrote the Principia to make it inaccessible to layman and dabblers. I really don't think you should be recommending a book like this to people who aren't specialists. Sagan's A Demon Haunted World will probably fulfill the stated purpose Tyson sets out better.

  3. On the Origin of Species: A good book that's held up remarkably well, but a more recent book of evolution might be better. The Extended Phenotype or The Selfish Gene would both probably do a better job.

  4. Gulliver's Travels: This is a great book. I support this recommendation.

  5. Age of Reason: Haven't read it. I like Paine otherwise though. No comment.

  6. The Wealth of Nations: Similar to On the Origin of Species. It's still a great read that's held up really well and offers an interesting historical perspective. That said, economic theory has made some pretty important advancements in two centuries (the Marginal Revolution, Keynes, etc). Still, if you want to stick to the time you'll probably get more out of reading Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy.

  7. The Art of War: Very good book. I have nothing to add.

  8. The Prince: Same as the above. Fantastic book.
u/Tree-eeeze · 24 pointsr/funny

Ok, before everyone gets all high and mighty here (too late) maybe you should consider the fact that for the VAST majority of our evolutionary history there was no advantage to a girl who slept around indiscriminately. It carried a huge burden (potentially 9 months of pregnancy and single-parenting) for almost zero likelihood that her genes would be any better off. In fact it was more likely they were worse off. It made much more sense for her to be choosy and find what she considered a high-value mate, or at least someone who she could expect to say around and help raise the child.

In that same time period it made significantly more sense for a guy to sleep around (if he was able) because he would have a better chance of ensuring the spread of his genes, though not necessarily the same success as if he chose a monogamous relationship and had several kids. It was just a valid competing strategy, whereas for women it was not, because it's inherently disadvantageous for them.

It continues to exist today despite radical changes in society/technology. That doesn't make it right but don't act like it's some arbitrary shit that exists for no reason.

I suggest The Red Queen and
The Selfish Gene
for further reading and many more insights.

Evolutionary psychology is not infallible by any means... but it can offer a lot of insight by examining the time period where we spent most of our evolutionary history (which is huge compared to the comparatively tiny amount of time we've spent in the modern world...or even the last few thousand years).

u/fullstop_upshop · 18 pointsr/CampingandHiking

A meme is a cultural idea that spreads between people, not a picture with silly text (Dawkins, 1976). A motivation poster fits well with within that definition, since it's a well-known and established unit for carrying cultural information.

You're describing an "internet meme;" however, since we are communicating via the internet, I suppose it's fair to assume the OP was suggesting that his GF created an internet meme for him. In that case, I'd have to agree with you.

Anyway... keep on track and get out on that trail!

u/encouragethestorm · 17 pointsr/DebateReligion

This thread has been around for a few hours so I'm afraid this comment might get buried, but since nobody who has commented so far on this thread is actually Catholic, I'll bite.

There are a few fundamentals that need to be cleared up before I can progress to considering the four questions you posed.

Firstly, I am not sure as to whether or not Catholics are actually required to believe in the existence of a literal Adam and Eve. Though in Humani Generis Pius XII wrote that the faithful were to affirm the historicity of "a sin truly committed by one Adam," John Paul II made no mention of a historical Adam and Eve in his "Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution" (typically when a pontiff disagree with previous pontiffs, they do not call them out directly, but rather omit that with which they disagree from their own teaching).

The story of Adam and Eve is meant to implicate all humanity: before the fall they do not even have proper names but are rather referred to in the Biblical text simply as "man" and "woman" (seriously, go take a look). It is, then, entirely correct to affirm that these two literary characters, this primordial couple who disobeyed the will of God represents all humanity. Whether or not we can therefore claim that the story is completely allegorical and that Adam and Eve as such did not exist is beyond my competence, but for my part I do not think that the belief that they exist is technically required.

Secondly, original sin is a descriptive term for the fact that human beings are born with something deficient in their wills. This fact is obvious: human nature includes a desire to seize, possess, to advance the interests of the self over the interests of others, to elevate the ego (as Augustine observes in his Confessions). This, I think, is indisputable, and this deficiency, this willingness to prioritize the self over other people and over the good, is precisely what the term "original sin" means. The word "sin" in the term "original sin" does not mean that people are born with personal sin, that people enter the world already guilty of wrongdoing; rather, the word "sin" refers to a condition in which not everything is as it should be, in which something is lacking.

  1. Evolution might have happened randomly, but at some point beings existed that had rational capacity and thus also the capacity for moral action (morality being a function of reason). Rational capacity, though perhaps a product of biological processes, presupposes the ability to act against instinctual urges for the sake of what one knows cognitively to be right. Thus evolution cannot be thought of as abjuring choice: if we have evolved to be rational creatures in a non-deterministic universe (as the Church believes we are), then the rational capacities we evolved necessarily entail our freedom in making our own choices.

    Perhaps the greatest revelation that Christianity brought into the world, the greatest "religious innovation," so to speak, is this notion that God is love. God wishes us to be united with him in love and does not wish to punish. Yet love to be real must be freely chosen; a love that is forced is by its very nature not love. If God allows us to participate in his being by loving, he is required to give us the choice of not loving.

    Thus I think the "sin" component of "Original Sin" is entirely coherent. The difficulty lies instead with the "original" aspect—how exactly is it that previous sin entails that the rest of us also enter this world in a state in which something is lacking in our wills? I am not entirely sure (and the Catechism itself says that "the transmission of original sin is a mystery"), but my personal theory is that any sin, by its very nature as a turning-away from God, effects a separation between the physical and the divine realms such that when sin entered into the physical world, the physical world became imperfect. If this realm of existence has become tainted, we who come after the tainting enter a world of imperfection, of lackingness and thus are conceived in lackingness. Something—some element of salvific grace proper to the divine realm—is missing.

  2. Even if early humans "had less thinking capacity," their status as rational animals made them moral agents. According to Thomas Aquinas, conscience itself is an act of the intellect by which a human being can judge the morality of an action, and thus morality depends upon intellect, upon knowing.

    Perhaps the point at which human beings became capable of obeying or disobeying God was the point at which one of our ancestors was capable of giving him- or herself fully away, of surrendering himself not for his own good (and not for the survival of his genes either; as Dawkins brilliantly observed before he dabbled into fields beyond his competence, it is the gene that is truly selfish and thus we can observe seemingly "altruistic" behavior in animals like bees, who sacrifice themselves to protect their kin and thus perpetuate their genes even though they die) but rather for the good. The point at which a human being was able to surrender him- or herself for a good cause simply and exclusively because it was the right thing to do seems to be the point at which true love becomes possible, and thus relationship with God as well.

    Says Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI:

    > The clay became man at the moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought of "God". The first Thou that—however stammeringly—was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which the spirit arose in the world. Here the Rubicon of anthropogenesis was crossed. For it is not the use of weapons or fire, not new methods of cruelty or of useful activity, that constitute man, but rather his ability to be immediately in relation to God. This holds fast to the doctrine of the special creation of man ... herein ... lies the reason why the moment of anthropogenesis cannot possibly be determined by paleontology: anthropogenesis is the rise of the spirit, which cannot be excavated with a shovel. The theory of evolution does not invalidate the faith, nor does it corroborate it. But it does challenge the faith to understand itself more profoundly and thus to help man to understand himself and to become increasingly what he is: the being who is supposed to say Thou to God in eternity.

    -Ratzinger, In the Beginning...

  3. For this question I have no concrete answers, but I can offer some thoughts.

    Firstly, God is timeless. Therefore the span of time between the creation of the universe and the appearance of the first rational/moral agent is of no consequence.

    Secondly, it appears that this universe is unusually conducive to life. Now, I'm a theologian, not a physicist, and so I may be talking out of my ass here, but as Martin Rees writes in Just Six Numbers there are six fundamental constants that "constitute the 'recipe' for a universe," such that if any one of them were even slightly different, this universe would be utterly incapable of producing the advanced forms of life capable of rational inquiry and moral reflection that are relevant to our discussion. For example, the value of the fundamental constant ε is 0.007, and "if ε were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist." Thus I don't think we can say that this is the case of a "laissez-faire" creator; rather, it would seem that this creator ensured that rational beings would eventually come to exist in the universe that he created and that we were thus intended.

    Thirdly, God does not disappear from the scene at the point at which beings are capable of acknowledging him. He makes his presence known and is active in history (and with the incarnation he even enters history).
u/Raisinhat · 16 pointsr/biology

I'm sure every subscriber here has already read it, but the top book has got to be The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Reading it really opened my mind to how evolution actually worked in a way that my teachers at school never had. Even if later on when I started learning about social insects I had to start questioning some of those ways of looking at an "individual".

Back on topic, I'd recommend Matt Ridley's Nature Via Nurture, Genome, and The Red Queen, as each are accessible yet still highly informative looks into various aspects of evolution.

For those interested in human evolution there's Y: The Descent of Men by Steve Jones and The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes.

All of those fall more under the category of books that should be read between high school and college if you are interested in studying Biology. Once you get to grad school level books might be a neat introduction to a topic, but any real learning would come from primary literature. I've read lots of fantastic papers but they start becoming so specialized that I would hesitate to put forward specific suggestions, because what might be fascinating to ecologists will probably be dire to molecular biologists. I know that as someone with a focus on zoology, most of the genetics papers I read left me more confused that enlightened.

u/mcandre · 12 pointsr/science

The Selfish Gene. We reconciled natural selection with altruism in the 70's.

u/chipbuddy · 10 pointsr/science

please read The Selfish Gene. It's an incredibly interesting book.

Dawkins talks about social insects (ants, termites, bees) and why they do things "for the greater good".

While individual ants are not acting selfishly, their genes are. If there are two competing alleles. One will (all other things being equal) will cause the worker ant to sacrifice itself for the colony and the other will (all other things being equal) cause the ant to have a sense of self preservation.

Since the worker ants don't send their genes on to the next generation (that is the queen's job), self preservation genes won't necessarily get passed on. If a queen gives a "self preservation" allele to all the worker ants, then the colony will be in danger. The queen will not be protected, and the colony could die off.

If a queen gives the "greater good" allele, the worker ants will protect the queen and the allele will likely be passed on.

So while all the individual ants are acting altruistically, the genes inside their bodes are acting selfishly: sacrificing expendable (genetically) dead end bodies for the one vehicle that can actually propagate the gene (the queen)

u/realdev · 10 pointsr/atheism

Religion is basically a virus, like Smallpox. Europe has had much more time to develop an immunity to it. Thousands upon thousands of years. The US is the New World, this is still practically our first exposure to it.

To read more on this perspective, check out "Guns Germs and Steel" which talks a lot about how viral immunity came about in Europe, as well as "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins.

u/mavnorman · 8 pointsr/evopsych
u/FadedPoster · 7 pointsr/biology

You could start with The Greatest Show On Earth by Richard Dawkins. It's a pretty easy read and it covers a wide range of the current evidence for evolution across different fields of science.

After that, The Selfish Gene also by Dawkins, is awesome. In it, he talks about evolution from the perspective of a gene.

Both should be pretty layman-friendly. He certainly has a compelling way of delivering his arguments.

u/[deleted] · 7 pointsr/DebateAnAtheist

There is quite a bit of hard evidence, and it's been put forth here.

.

Now, speaking for myself, I think I get my morality from the exact same place you get yours, which is not the bible.

What makes me say that, is this. Unless you are a really, really hard-line fundamentalist, there are parts of the bible that you disregard. Maybe it's the admonition to slaves about obeying their masters. Maybe you think Lot was in the wrong when he handed his daughters over to be gang-raped. Maybe you've balked at the idea of killing your children for sassing back at you. It doesn't matter what the exact chapter-and-verse is that you object to.

What is important, is that some part of your mind is saying, "Wait a minute here, that verse is pretty off-color; don't follow that advice!"

That part of your mind is your moral self, or your conscience, or the little angel on your shoulder, or whatever you want to call it. Your morality comes from that, and not from the bible nor, by extension, Jehovah.

(Note that I have assumed you are christian. Feel free to replace terms used above, such as bible or Jehovah to suit your own religion. The point I've made will still hold.)

u/cowgod42 · 7 pointsr/evolution

Sure thing! The great, and not so great, thing about learning about evolution is that there is so much information out there it can be a bit overwhelm at times, and it is not always easy to know where to start. The best place to start it probably a university class, but that is not always an accessible resource. In lieu of that, I will strong recommend learning from biologist Richard Dawkins. While he is currently well-known for his stance on religion, he has devoted his life to teaching about evolution to the public. I'll give you a few of my favorite references of his. They are arranged in terms of the length of time they will probably take you. Also, so that you won't be intimidated, they are not references in which he explicitly denounces religion or anything; although, as you will see, he does explain evolution in contrast to some of the claims of creationism. I hope that is not a problem, as it is kind of necessary to learn why biologists take one view as opposed to the other.

Anyway, here are the references! =)

This video (5 parts, 10 min each) is a great introduction to some of the basic concepts of evolution, and was really eye-opening for me.

This lecture series (5 episodes, 1 hour each) goes into much more detail than the above video, gives much more evidence, illustrates some of the arguments, and has many fun and beautiful examples.

The Selfish Gene is a book that answered a huge number of questions about evolution for me (e.g., how can a "survival of the fittest" scheme give rise to people being nice to each other? The answer, it turns out, is fascinating.)

The The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution May be the book you are looking for. This book clearly lays down the evidence for evolution, complete with wonderful illustrations. It is very detailed, and very readable.


There are many other great authors besides Richard Dawkins, but this is a great place to start. You are about to go on a very beautiful and moving journey, if you decide to take it. I envy you! I would love to do it all over again. Enjoy!

u/DidntClickGuy · 6 pointsr/atheism

I wish I could tell you that all you need to do is to stop believing in God and suddenly things will become much clearer. Unfortunately, this is not really the case.

Think of the God idea as a piece of malware, which is running on the computer of your brain. It's malware because it takes up your resources to do something that isn't beneficial to you. Once upon a time you installed the Loving Parents And Social Circle software, and it asked you to install the God program as part of it. You clicked OK at the time, but now you've figured out it's malware, and you need to find a way to get rid of the malware, but you don't want to uninstall the Loving Parents And Social Circle software too.

This is a very touchy process and I can't guarantee you'll be successful. Some people give up and simply decide to go without the Loving Parents And Social Circle software, because the licensing requirements are just too restrictive. I don't recommend this path. Even if the requirements are pretty rough, it's good software.

But here's the kick that no one tells you: by getting rid of the malware, you don't just suddenly have an awesome computer you can use for anything. You have to find and download lots of other software now. Getting rid of the malware was just the beginning, and now the real work begins. You're already way behind people who got rid of their malware ages ago, or maybe never had it to begin with. You need to play catch-up.

Here's the good news: most people, once they've finally gotten rid of the malware, wake up the next day and get really excited about all the new things their computer can potentially do, and they find themselves staying up all night downloading and running new stuff. There's a burst of energy that comes with suddenly finding all these free resources.

Maybe there's some old software sitting there that you never really used, and now you can run it much better than you did before. That was the case with me, and this was the software I ran. Then I started downloading more and more and more. Now I feel like my speeds are better than most and about as fast as the people I find interesting to talk to.

u/jjberg2 · 6 pointsr/askscience

It may help not to think of it in terms of what advantage it provides to the individual, but rather what advantage it provides to the genes.

It basically comes down to the fact that genes which compelled the individuals who carry them to reproduce (or gave them a better chance of survival) are those that were passed down to the next generation.

So, generally speaking, the organisms alive today are the descendants of those previous organisms who's genetics most strongly compelled them to reproduce (and they are composed, roughly, of those same genes, so that compulsion will be present in them too).

Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene does a phenomenal job of explaining this way of thinking.

u/yreg · 5 pointsr/kurzgesagt

Our body at birth is determined by DNA.

Environment


You are affected by environment. E.g. if you are a miner, you have a higher chance of getting lung cancer. If you are hit by a car, you might loose your leg. While this is not inherited, your children have an elevated chance to be in the same environments (where they are miners or surrounded by cars). One might stretch it and claim that you inherit the environment (along with its consequences), therefore there is this meta-evolution level above genes.

Behaviour


You pickup behaviour from people who surround you. This is most important at the start of your life and you are usually surrounded by your parents. They play their favourite music and games, have their favourite books and watch their favourite shows. You might pick them up from them. They teach you their religion and their language and you'll probably pass those to your children as well.

Memetics

This is better described in the Memetics theory, which mirrors the biological Darwinism and is concerning memes as opposed to genes. Memes are ideas and they spread, similar to genes, by self-replication. They branch and alter and combine and evolve. The weak ideas are forgotten, while the strong ideas spread through population and adapt and survive for millenia.

If you are interested in this stuff, I cannot recommend highly enough The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, which explains evolution extremely well, proposes the aforementioned Memetics theory, explains evolutionary reasons for altruism, various game strategies and so on.

^^Small ^^warning: ^^the ^^author ^^is ^^an ^^evolutionary ^^biologist ^^and ^^also ^^a ^^radical ^^atheist ^^and ^^some ^^of ^^his ^^opinions ^^might ^^insult ^^a ^^deeply ^^religious ^^person. ^^I ^^don't ^^think ^^it's ^^particularly ^^true ^^about ^^this ^^book, ^^but ^^it ^^might.

u/Gazzellebeats · 5 pointsr/LetsGetLaid

>I don’t regret having one, just extremely ashamed of being sexual and communicating it to girls and also showing it to the world. Attracting girls’ attention and whatnot isn’t very hard but progressing things to dating, holding hands and eventually sex is impossible. I can’t even call them or message them on Facebook or Whatsapp because I just feel like an idiot for doing so. Making a move in clubs and bars is also difficult although I once got close to leaving with a girl but she didn't want to. I got made fun of a lot growing up for not having a girlfriend and this made me feel like i do not deserve one. It doesn't matter if I've got the green light to go ahead I just feel really ashamed do it. Even something like looking at a fit girl wearing a short skirt makes me feel bad for checking her out and that I shouldn’t be doing it.


I know what you mean. I've been there myself, but even when I was there I was entirely self-aware of my shame and I was skeptical of the validity of my emotional reactions; I realized they were ingrained. Being aware of your emotional reactions allows you to be emotionally proactive. Your sex-negative problem is mostly an emotional issue, and not much else, right? I've been there. I wouldn't doubt that you are also decent looking and have both latent and actualized social skills. Most intelligent introverts have a lot of potential to be who they want to be because they know themselves more deeply than others. You must use your introverted nature to your advantage and recognize the differences in others and yourself. In all honesty, there are an infinite number of unwritten rules; everyone's abstract/emotional logic is different. Many of them are foundational and predictable, however; including yours and mine. Like anything else, being emotionally predictable is not a black/white issue. It is a grey area, and you have to balance your reliability with creativity.


Being made fun of for not having a girlfriend is just as sexist as being made fun of for not having a boyfriend; gender equal too. Were you ever shamed for not having a boyfriend? It's clearly a matter of groupthink and extroverted style; not for everyone. Dating relationships, for extroverts especially, are often attention-getting and showy. They wear their relationships like trophies won. Usually introverts prefer a more private relationship because they have less social desire and are often shamed because of it. Introverts are “themselves” more often in private. Extroverts are “themselves” more often in public. There is no shame deserved either way, regardless of popular opinion. Both styles have their strengths and weaknesses, and you should try to introject some of the traits that you enjoy in others; regardless of type. That is how you become balanced.


>I’m receiving counselling from a pastor who advocates the whole “no sex before marriage” thing and believes that people should only date to get married and sex is only for making kids which is stupid IMO because I do not plan on getting married anytime soon.


Counseling from a Catholic pastor? Watch out, that is one of the most notorious sex-negative societies out there. They own the abstinence-only charade while they parade horribles. Marriage is not the answer to anything; it is an institution of the state. Anything else attached is sentimental.


If you haven't already, I recommend doing an in-depth study of animal sexual behaviors; especially the most intelligent animals. All animals have sex for pleasure, but some animals are only driven to have sex at certain times of the year; humans are on a 24/7 system.


>I’ve tried the no fap route and gotten very high days counts but that hasn’t really helped me at all.


Sexual frustration doesn't help anyone. If you are mindful, then you can use your libido to further your goals, but it is not an all-cure.


>Got any sources to help overcome sex-negative perspectives? I’m interested in recreational sex not baby making sex.


Absolutely. I recommend starting with actual sex science and learning about male and female psychology and neurology. Then work your way into reading about sex culture. You should also study developmental psychology as you will probably need the clinical context in order to objectively self-evaluate your childhood influences; it is necessary for self-therapy. The best therapy will always be self-therapy; no one will ever know you better than yourself.


Evolutionary Science and Morals Philosophy:

The Selfish Gene

The Moral Landscape

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?


Sex Psychology, Science, and Neurology:

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

The Female Brain

The Male Brain

Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love

What Do Women Want

Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)

Sex: The world's favorite pastime fully revealed


Behavioral Psychology and Abstract Economics:

How Pleasure Works

Freakonomics

Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking

Thinking Fast And Slow

We Are All Weird


Developmental Psychology:

Nurture Shock

Hauntings: Dispelling The Ghosts That Run Our Lives


Empathy Building:


Half The Sky

The House On Mango Street

Me Before You

The Fault In Our Stars

Also check out James Hollis' Understanding The Psychology of Men lecture if you can find it.



Movies: XXY, Tom Boy, Dogtooth, Shame, Secretary, Nymphomaniac, Juno, Beautiful Creatures, and The Man From Earth.



All of these things are related, but it is up to you to make the connections; pick and choose which material suits your interests best. These are the things that came to mind first, and they have all influenced my perspectives.

u/4amPhilosophy · 4 pointsr/relationship_advice

The tone of this poster is very inflamatory, but the information in the above post is backed by some serious research. Reproduction is major business, after all animals have adapted to their detriment to attract mates (think male peacocks, those tails make them easier prey.) Humans are just as influenced by biology as any other animal. We however, can educate ourselves and modify our behaviors as we see fit. I highly recommend the following books to anyone with the smallest interest in this topic. They are all fascinating reads and I guarentee brain = asplode when you read them.

Sperm Wars by Robin Baker

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, by Matt Ridley

The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins

The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People by David P. Barash Ph.D. and Judith Eve Lipton

Also, I'm a gal, and understanding how evolutionary biology made humans behave the way they do has been a real eye opener. Let me tell you, bars and clubs are infinitely more amusing now. The people watching has taken on a whole new level of entertainment!

EDIT: The links were messed up, had to fix that.

u/Positronic_Matrix · 4 pointsr/science

Another way you can phrase your question is, how can I educate my brother?

As with any education, its success is a function of the curriculum — start with a strong foundation in the broad basics and finish with the specifics. In this case, chemistry, biology, and physics lay the foundation for advanced courses in evolutionary biology and psychology.

Because it is unlikely that your brother will seek out this education, as it directly conflicts with his religious ideology, an ongoing dialogue with you is the next best thing. For this to work, you must first familiarize yourself with the material. If you haven't had biology, chemistry, or physics, take it. Then, read the following:

  • The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
  • Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach by John Alcock
  • Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind by David Buss

    The best way to convey information to someone who doesn't know that they're receiving an education from you is through the Socratic method. Ask questions that are specific and understood under the paradigm of science — avoid the unknowable ambiguous questions that the religious often heap on the scientist. For instance, a fun questions is to ask how many fingers different mammals have. The answer is always five, since we evolved from a common ancestor. Along the way, fun lessons in evolution can be given:

  • A human has five fingers with one that evolved an opposable thumb to hold tools.
  • A panda has five fingers with a wrist bone that evolved to strip leaves that looks like sixth finger.
  • A horse has five fingers and walks on a giant thumbnail.
  • A gazelle has five fingers and walks on the nails of its index and middle finger.
  • A cat has five fingers walking on four and the front pad of its hand — the rest of the hand stretches upward with a little thumb up high.
  • A whale has five fingers that evolved into a single flipper.
  • A bat has five fingers that evolved into the ribs of a wing.

    If all else fails, you'll have read the Selfish Gene, one of my all-time favorites that I read in my Evolutionary Biology course and have reread several times since.
u/christgoldman · 3 pointsr/DebateAnAtheist

> There appears to be an innate drive in humans towards something that is moral, existential, and transcendent

And that would be because we've evolved as a social species, and rather than acting selfishly, we act as a community to better propagate our genes. (Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene; Steven Pinker [again] The Better Angels of Our Nature)

> the lack of a clear universal and very specific "sensus divinitatis" doesn't inform us either way about the divine existence.

It does, when you start positing specific deities. If your deity punishes non-belief, your deity is positively immoral without instilling a natural sense of sensus divinitatis. See another comment of mine on this thread for more on that.

u/Deckardz · 3 pointsr/atheism

I already own The God Delusion. The only anniversary edition I see is of The Selfish Gene. Is that what you're referring to?

u/TheGreasyPole · 3 pointsr/PurplePillDebate

OK.

The single best evo-psych book I can think of is

The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker. It's extremely readable as well as very informative.

Where you'd want to go next depends on what you'd like to learn more about, and whether you liked Stephen Pinker as an author.

If you'd like to know more about the genetics that underlying the evo-psych then you want.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

If you're interested specifically in what evo-psych has to say about human sexuality you want

The Evolution of Desire by David Buss

And if you really like Stephen Pinker and want to know what evo psych means for human societies I'd recommend

The Angels of our Better Nature by Stephen Pinker

or (if you don't like Pinker)

Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley.

I've given you US Amazon links, and no. I don't get a cut :(

u/luxury_banana · 3 pointsr/MensRights

There is a much longer book in which the author (Roy Baumeister) covers these topics more in-depth.

Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men

Other good reads which are related include The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley, and Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.

u/agoodresponse · 3 pointsr/asktrp

Okay, I will tell you some things about me.

First, I ghosted everyone that knew me as a Blue Pill guy. Now, an inherent part of ghosting is being alone. When most people tell you they are independent, it's fucking bullshit. Emerson wrote a great deal on self-reliance.

Here is an essay by Emerson on the subject of self-reliance. It is both a great introduction to his views and how beautifully he writes.
http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm

Here is a collection of Emerson's essays. Ignore the 1 star review, which is for the Kindle version of the book, but heed it and buy the physical book instead of the Kindle version.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1598530844/

Emerson was friend and mentor to Thoreau, who wrote the following account of his two-year stay in a cabin near Walden Pond. One of Thoreau's goals was self-sufficiency.
http://www.amazon.com/Walden-A-Fully-Annotated-Edition/dp/0300104669

Here is some further reading.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0762415339/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1492777862/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0199291152/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0802150926/

You mention you are going to be a radiographer soon. Now, I have seen said on TRP that some here do not see the point in film, but I fucking love film. Now, there is one film in particular that I think relates to your situation incredibly. That is Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ikiru/
Ikiru is about a Japanese man who, near the end of his life, learns he has a terminal disease. He has, up to that point, wasted his whole life at his government job. Learning of his illness inspires in the main character a will to change, and seeing him undergo that inspires change in those around him. But, and this is another lesson to be learned from the film, we see that the main character's transformation has no lasting effect on those around him. Change has to come from within.

Another film seriously worth watching is Whiplash. I saw it mentioned in this subreddit in passing and am glad I did.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7d_jQycdQGo

If you want me to elaborate on the things that I didn't, ask. I have a lot more film recommendations, but cannot recommend any more books, as I do not read that much. I don't recommend any music as I would consider most of what I listen to to be blue pill.

u/tikael · 3 pointsr/atheism

Overviews of the evidence:

The greatest show on earth

Why evolution is true

Books on advanced evolution:

The selfish gene

The extended phenotype

Climbing mount improbable

The ancestors tale

It is hard to find a better author than Dawkins to explain evolutionary biology. Many other popular science books either don't cover the details or don't focus entirely on evolution.

I will hit one point though.

>I have a hard time simply jumping from natural adaption or mutation or addition of information to the genome, etc. to an entirely different species.

For this you should understand two very important concepts in evolution. The first is a reproductive barrier. Basically as two populations of a species remain apart from each other (in technical terms we say there is no gene flow between them) then repoductive barriers becomes established. These range in type. There are behavioral barriers, such as certain species of insects mating at different times of the day from other closely related species. If they both still mated at the same time then they could still produce viable offspring. Other examples of behavior would be songs in birds (females will only mate with males who sing a certain way). There can also be physical barriers to reproduction, such as producing infertile offspring (like a donkey and a horse do) or simply being unable to mate (many bees or flies have different arrangements of their genitalia which makes it difficult or impossible to mate with other closely related species. Once these barriers exist then the two populations are considered two different species. These two species can now further diverge from each other.

The second thing to understand is the locking in of important genes. Evolution does not really take place on the level of the individual as most first year biology courses will tell you. It makes far more sense to say that it takes place on the level of the gene (read the selfish gene and the extended phenotype for a better overview of this). Any given gene can have a mutation that is either positive, negative, of neutral. Most mutations are neutral or negative. Let's say that a certain gene has a 85% chance of having a negative mutation, a 10% chance of a neutral mutation, and a 5% chance of a positive mutation. This gene is doing pretty good, from it's viewpoint it has an 85% chance of 'surviving' a mutation. What is meant by this is that even though one of it's offspring may have mutated there is an 85% chance that the mutated gene will perform worse than it and so the mutation will not replace it in the gene pool. If a neutral mutation happens then this is trouble for the original gene, because now there is a gene that does just as good a job as it in the gene pool. At this point random fluctuations of gene frequency called genetic drift take over the fate of the mutated gene (I won't go into genetic drift here but you should understand it if you want to understand evolution).

The last type of mutation, a positive mutation is what natural selection acts on. This type of mutation would also change the negative/neutral/positive mutation possibilities. so the newly positively mutated gene might have frequencies of 90/7/3 Already it has much better odds than the original gene. OK, one more point before I explain how this all ties together. Once a gene has reached the 100/0/0 point it does not mean that gene wins forever, there can still be mutations in other genes that affect it. A gene making an ant really good at flying doesn't matter much when the ant lives in tunnels and bites off its own wings, so that gene now has altered percentages in ants. It is this very complex web that makes up the very basics of mutations and how they impact evolution (if you are wondering how common mutations are I believe they happen about once every billion base pairs, so every human at conception has on average 4 mutations that were not present in either parent)

This all ties back together by understanding that body plan genes (called hox genes) lock species into their current body plans, by reducing the number of possible positive or neutral mutations they become crucial to the organisms survival. As evolutionary time progresses these genes become more and more locked in, meaning that the body plans of individuals become more and more locked in. So it is no wonder that coming in so late to the game as we are we see such diversity in life and we never see large scale form mutations. Those type of mutations became less likely as the hox genes became locked in their comfy spots on the unimpeachable end of the mutation probability pool. That is why it is hard to imagine one species evolving into another, and why a creationist saying that they will believe evolution when a monkey gives birth to a human is so wrong.

Hopefully I explained that well, it is kind of a dense subject and I had to skip some things I would rather have covered.

u/kenshin13850 · 3 pointsr/askscience

/u/Millcrab is correct. The fact is we don't have enough time to wait for life to develop in the lab. However, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey started an experiment in 1953 in which they simulated an early Earth environment and after just two weeks their bottle contained 11 of the 20 amino acids we see today, as well as some hydrocarbons and other organic compounds. They also let some vials sit for 50 years and when modern scientists opened them, they discovered over 20 amino acids, which is more than life uses today! So it's easy to make the building blocks of life, the problem is waiting for them to come together and make life.

If you're really interested in this topic, then I recommend reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (fun fact, Dawkins invented the modern word meme [from the greek "mimēma"]!). It describes a pretty cool hypothesis on how life could have originated and Dawkins has a really dry sense of humor that you can pick up from his novel. I will admit that he could be a bit more diplomatic on some subjects though.

u/Redditor_on_LSD · 2 pointsr/askscience

Anyone interested in this should read The Selfish Gene

u/gehenom · 2 pointsr/science

The concept is simple, but the implications are tremendous and often counterintuitive. Do yourself a favor if you want to understand. Go buy:

u/MarcoVincenzo · 2 pointsr/atheism

Links always help:

u/elementalizer · 2 pointsr/self

A good book that is fun to read and has tons of anecdotes about scientific history is A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

In a similar vein, you can ponder the more mind-bending aspects of our Universe with Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time

Other than that you may find some interesting things in the works of Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins (I personally recommend Dawkins's The Selfish Gene)

If you are sick of scientific titles you can also check out Freakonomics or The Worldly Philosphers

These Books are all written for a general audience so they go down pretty easy.

Deciding which major in College can be tricky - I was lucky since I knew exactly what I wanted to study before I left High School, but maybe some ideas in these books will pique your interest. My parents always told me to go to school to study something I love, and not to train for a job. I'm not so sure this advice carries through in "recovering" economy. You may want to factor in the usefulness of your degree post-college (but don't let that be the only thing you consider!).

Good Luck, and enjoy!

u/tekvx · 2 pointsr/argentina

Jo-der. No se si sos un economista, un biologo, o un sabelotodo -- pero la gente como vos es peligrosa... Agarras el narrativo ideal y lo justificas atacando la cruda realidad (y sin fundamento). Espero que seas un interlocutor valido o que por lo menos, vos tambien, tengas autores a quienes haces referencia.

Aca van los mios:

  • Capitalismo como propiedad intrinseca de la poblacion humana:

    "The Delphic Boat: What Genomes Tell us" by: Antoine Danchin (un groso..... en serio.)

    "The Free Market Existentialist" by: William Irwin (phD philosophy).

    "Antifragile" by: Nassim Taleb (este tipo es una eminencia, lee su CV


    Ademas, tal vez te interese este video informativo (porque no tenes ganas de leer tanto) acerca de la historia del capitalismo... son 11 mins. y bastante claro.

  • El gen como unidad basica

    "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. (si no leiste esto todavia, te lo recomiendo!!!! mucho!!!!! pero me parece raro que seas biologo y no entiendas a lo que me refiero con decir que el gen es la unidad basica)

  • Matematica para entender la economia desde los grados de libertad que se presentan en el movimiento Browniano (Stoic Calculus)

    Ito Calculus es un buen lugar para comenzar.

    Este video course de MIT acerca de finanzas es basicamente TODO la matematica que necesitas para entender finanzas o macroeconomia moderna.

    Este video course de MIT es mas orientado a la economia y el rol de la politica en el desarrollo economico.

    Cualquier duda NO QUEDO a disposicion por consultas, pero espero que contribuyas algo de tu parte.... para enriquecer la discusion

    Y a los downvoters: You're all dirty slags.

    EDIT - agregue un video
u/SmokinLogan · 2 pointsr/cigars

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary----Introduction/dp/0199291152/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382450391&sr=1-1&keywords=selfish+gene
It is a nerdy read, but it talks about how everything we do in our life is for a selfish reason, even selfless acts.

u/fingerthemoon · 2 pointsr/TheRedPill

I've been coming across information lately about scientists who bring up controversial topics and how much shit they have to deal with afterwards. Often their careers are ruined, they have to face angry mobs and their lives are threatened.

In Steven Pinkers The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature he devotes chapter 7 to this topic. There are many examples but off the top of my head I remember one guy who did some studies on left-handed people and discovered they are prone to birth defects and some other genetic disorders. He was sued, attacked and eventually the University he worked for made the topic illegal to study.

Another example is Charles Murray's The
Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
. He has one chapter about IQ tests and race. He talks about the repercussions in this video Charles Murray -- The Bell Curve Revisited. But basically he was labeled a raciest for simply talking about the data.

I don't know if you're familiar with Richard Dawkins but he has also faced extreme criticism for his world changing book The Selfish Gene.

There are many examples and I can't list them all, but suffice it to say, people will take your words out of context, flat out miss quote you and spin your words in order to discredit what you say and have you labeled negatively. Just look at Trump and how they've done this to him. He is compared to Hitler and seen as the epitome of evil itself.

I'm finding that most people are immune to logic. Many people believe that race and sex are social constructs. 40% of Americans deny evolution. Libertarians are demonized and dismissed as idiots all over the place....

I've come to the conclusion that the information I've acquired pertaining to politics, social science, anthropology, evolution, religion, and sexuality, however much it is backed by science and reason, is very, very unpopular, and it's wiser for me to pretend to be and think like others. Getting tingles from some women at a party because you challenge their beliefs is not worth the very real possibility of having your character slandered and your carrier ruined.

You might be more intelligent than I and able to pull it off but I'm probably older, and I've been around long enough to see just how shitty and back-stabbing people can be, even those you considered friends. So I'm playing it safe and keeping my thoughts on controversial topics to myself.

u/lambros009 · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins tackles the question of how acts of altruism that are often observed of a lot of species in nature can exist when we know that the natural world is brutal landscape that runs on savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit. This is a good book to pick up regardless of what you think of Dawkins' political stance in the last few years. This has nothing to do with religion, and it changed my mind enough that it influenced everyday thinking. Even just watching a bird on the sidewalk will prompt evolutionary questions.

Another one is Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
by Douglas R. Hofstadter. It deals with mathematical formal systems and intresting intricate logical patterns that seem to be found everywhere. This book will tackle math, music, computer science, paintings of Escher, etc and show a common thread running through them. Enlightening stuff, but be warned, it is rather dense. But still approachable by a layman in my opinion. (Perhaps a layman with a penchant for that sort of stuff)

u/jarederaj · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

"Plato to Nato" by David Gress

This book calls into question many misconceptions about the way many westerners were taught history by painting a past that is deeply complex and full of nuance. It's helpful to your intelligence in that it shows you how to look at the way different environmental factors effect different situations and how generalizations make for poor thought experiments. Truly, a book that shows how to ask questions about the past and the stories we're being told about it.


"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.

Understanding mechanisms behind evolution is key to understanding modern thought patterns and systems of analysis. Even systems of computation are heavily influenced by accurate understandings of the concepts illustrated in this book. Many people do not realize that they don't understand evolution, either. After reading and understanding "The Selfish Gene" you'll be able to quickly catch people making extremely flawed assumptions about the world around them. You'll also have simple rhetorical tools to convince them of their errors. IMO, this is the best bang-for-your-buck book in circulation.

u/AlSweigart · 2 pointsr/atheism

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins doesn't really go into anything new or original, but the strength of the book is that is a great, concise summary of all the beginning arguments for atheism.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004

I'd follow it with Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell", also a good recommendation. Same goes for Carl Sagan's "A Demon Haunted World"

http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Spell-Religion-Natural-Phenomenon/dp/0143038338

http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/

Christopher Hitchens is a bit vitriolic for some, but "God is not Great" has some nuggets in it.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807/

I personally didn't like Sam Harris' "End of Faith" but I did like his "Letter to a Christian Nation".

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Vintage-Harris/dp/0307278778/

For the topic of evolution, Talk Origins is great (and free) http://toarchive.org/
Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" is also a good read (and short). Not so short but also good are Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker", "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "Unweaving the Rainbow"

http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152/

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Watchmaker-Evidence-Evolution-Universe/dp/0393315703/

http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Mount-Improbable-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0393316823/

http://www.amazon.com/Unweaving-Rainbow-Science-Delusion-Appetite/dp/0618056734/

u/deepfriedcocaine · 2 pointsr/askscience

> primary actor

Fair enough, and thanks for the informative answer. I'll definitely check out the book; Richard Dawkins focused on the same concept in The Selfish Gene and came to a similar conclusion through an interesting example with the prisoner's dilemma.

It's been years, but if I recall correctly, numerous participants designed reactions for the scenario. In the majority of cases, the most selfish options won. However, one of the most successful programs said something along the lines of, "Remain silent for every new partnership, but if one particular person betrays you, then accuse them in all future scenarios."

I think the two qualifications he required for "genuine" altruism were that it cannot be reciprocal (for mutual benefit) or kin-related, so I'll have to research for some more specific examples in nature. Or just read Ridley's book. Still, a mechanical equivalent to DNA seems entirely conceivable; mutations are a large part of evolution, so I suppose "computing errors" could register as parallel.

u/Galphanore · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

>But even still, if the Homosexual population doesn't breed with females, how does the gene for Homosexuality continue existing? I'm considering Homosexuality as a gene because I'm damn sure it's not merely a choice.

Because humans lived in tribe groups of blood relatives for a very long time. So, even if one person is a homosexual and doesn't breed, their relatives (even brothers who share the majority of the DNA with the non-breeder) do. So they, as non-breeders, have time and energy to dedicate to helping rear and protect their brother's children. Give The Selfish Gene a read sometime if you want more in-depth information on this kinda stuff, it was a great read.

u/CaptainBipto · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Creationism is the idea that the universe was created by some supernatural being (ie God) either through biblical accounts, or some other mechanism such as "Intelligent Design".

Evolution, or more specifically Evolution by Natural Selection is the current scientific theory for how life arose on Earth. In this context theory means an explanation that fits all current data, is testable, and is falsifiable. For example finding a bunny skeleton in the belly of a T-Rex would prove a lot of parts of the theory of evolution wrong. Creationism is not a theory or scientific explanation because it is not testable (there is no experiment to prove it happened), does not fit current data (age of Earth, dinosaurs), and is not falsifiable.

The basic principle of evolution by natural selection is based of a few principles of biology. Living things reproduce. When they reproduce they make copies of themselves and pass their genetic code or DNA to the next generation. This process is not 100% accurate, so occasionally there are errors, or mutations in the DNA. These mutations lead to different characteristics. Many times these mutations are fatal, and the offspring do not survive. But on occasion these tiny mutations are beneficial. Over great expanses of time, and many many generations, these beneficial or advantageous mutations can lead to a species being better adapted to its environment and surviving, or out competing other species. That is the basic idea.

How does this lead to new species? As far as I know there are a few contenders for that part of the theory. But the leading theory is the idea that somehow a population of creatures gets divided somehow. We'll use the finches in the Galapagos for example. For argument's sake we'll assume that all of the finches in the islands were descended from the same species of finch and got spread out on these different islands. Finches on different islands had access to different plants with different seeds. As finch population A reproduced for generations the finches with thick stout beaks that were good at breaking open thick nuts were the best survivors. Now all the finches in population A have that kind of beak because finches with smaller beaks died and didn't reproduce because they couldn't eat the seeds. The same thing happened to finch population B on a different island, but they evolved to eat small seeds off the ground, so their beaks are longer and thinner. Over time these 2 groups of finches became different enough that they are no longer the same species.

That is a very basic overview of evolution and it's been a long time since I've tried to put it in writing. If you are interested in learning more I would suggest The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

u/kalhan · 2 pointsr/india

Care to explain what "standard Darwinian thought" is?

standard darwanian thought. evolution of morality is a process of natural selection. religion has it's basis in providing a moral order (necessary for survival as a cohesive group) which eventually stems out to sermonize against irrelevant things that make up 99% of religious thought.

on of these sermons is to attack every other moral order (religion) based, not on the legitimate 1% that's common between them but on the 99% that's pure fabrication, often exposed to be just another method of control that the powerful use to keep these religious fuck-nuts from concentrating on what's really important. the illegitimacy of power, thus snugly fitting into the definition of "the survival of the fittest"

books you can read about these (english)
http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152/ref=pd_sim_b_5
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Science-Bertrand-Russell/dp/0195115511
http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Forgotten-Ancestors-Search-Who/dp/0394534816

books you can read about these in sanskrit: none, since it's impossible to translate anything form english to sanskrit. all dictionaries being flawed and all that.

u/FeChaff · 2 pointsr/atheism

There are some good responses here. I'd like to just tackle number 4. First of all, this questions seems to suggest that if a person believes evolution by natural selection is true they therefore must not believe in helping the weak. In other words they equate accepting the occurence of evolution with adopting a survival of the fittest moral code. This does not follow. It is like saying "If you believe it is natural that a person caught in the elements may die of hypothermia, then you should be oppossed to giving such a person dry clothes and shelter." It's silly. Its possible to recognize the truth of evolution and also see that it would make a terrible basis for morality.

The second thing is the actual question of, how did such behavior come about? There are a lot of ways natural selection can favor, or select for, altruistic behavior. Altruism benefits the genes that code for it because the individuals most likely to carry the altruistic genes, the offspring of the altruistic parent, have better reproductive success as a result of the atruistic traits of the parents. You really should read some Richard Dawkins. He has several really good books on evolution which also cover this subject starting with The Selfish Gene if you haven't read it already.

The other thing to keep in mind is that not all behaviors did get naturally selected. Some traits and behaviors are biproducts of other biology that was advantageous. A parent my carry a gene that causes it to act altruistic toward its young. It is easy to see why this is advantageous. But, the most efficient code for this behavior will not likely specifiy exactly which individuals to act this way towards and so it may result in the parent sometimes acting altruisticly towards individuals who don't share its genes. It is sort of like the way sexual pleasure is naturally selected because it increases reproductive rates, but it can also have the non-advantageous effect of causing masterbation or other forms of sex that can't lead to offspring.

Genes in social species that allow them to function in communities can misfire in all sorts of interesting ways giving us all sorts of interesting cutural phenomenon. Once you have a community, social/cultural evolution can take over and produce things totally unrelated to biological evoltution.

u/motophiliac · 2 pointsr/science

I would say so. You guys may already know this but it bears repeating because it reveals how life-shatteringly important this book is: read Michael J. Edwards' review on Amazon.

(* cleanup)

u/VitruviannMan · 2 pointsr/atheism

The concept and the term "meme" were first coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It's a wonderful book to read, and would certainly change your perspective of life if you're not already well-versed in evolution.

u/mariox19 · 2 pointsr/Economics

Evolution -- and nature itself -- is amoral. Moreover any ethical "instinct" is more about the perpetuation of genes than it is the individual or human society. I fail to see what evolution has to teach us concerning ethics.

u/qxe · 2 pointsr/atheism

Great! My best advice for you is to start your reading with Sam Harris' The End of Faith. You can buy a hardcover of it on Amazon for $3.11 plus shipping and in my opinion, it gives an excellent overview of the subject.

Another one I would read concurrently is Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. Both are excellent for beginning your exploration.

u/Terminal-Psychosis · 2 pointsr/TumblrInAction

With your mind, you might appreciate this book.

u/cspayton · 2 pointsr/exchristian

Thanks for responding!

I think that there are a few books which have influenced me greatly, but I have a much more expansive list of books I want to read than ones I have already consumed.

To start, you should try the greats:

u/BeakOfTheFinch · 1 pointr/DebateAnAtheist

If you have the time, read the most famous book on this topic (by the most famous atheist):

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0199291152

(The audiobook is even better)

u/ralph-j · 1 pointr/changemyview

I don't think that we currently know the exact evolutionary origin, but there are some reasonable hypotheses.

If you view organisms as survival machines, there is quite an advantage in being able to simulate strategies to decide what to do next, without having to use trial and error. Over time, those simulations would likely start including a more and more refined representation of the self, leading eventually to self-awareness.

My view is paraphrased from the Selfish Gene.

u/fernandoleon · 1 pointr/TheRedPill

I've read it. It's evolutionary psyche/behavioral psyche. Not a bad read, but Ridley comes across more as a pop-science author than an actual scientist.

I liked this and this much more.

u/samhasrabies · 1 pointr/changemyview

In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins argues that the primary unit of natural selection is the gene (as opposed to the individual or the species). He even refers to any given organism as a "survival machine" for its genes.

Let's rethink your example of the Arctic moths: Given enough time, it is fair to assume that mutations will randomly occur in the gene that controls color. Genes for lighter coloration will allow their survival machines to better avoid predators, giving them longer lifespans and therefore more opportunities to reproduce. All of this translates to an evolutionary advantage for light-color genes over dark-color genes.

But wait! Before the dark-color genes completely die out, a new mutation develops: a gene (or more likely a set of genes) that endows the moths with the instinct and/or ability to build and stay in a safe-house.

Now we have two completely different survival strategies, but they are not necessarily in direct competition with one another. Either strategy on its own increases the chance of of an individual moth's longevity, therefore reproductive opportunity, therefore gene transmission. If the safe-house mutation (I think we are assuming that this is the stronger survival strategy) comes after the light-color mutation, light color will become obsolete as a determining factor of gene success. But it will likely still exist as some sort of co-dominant variation with no substantive impact on selection (like hair or eye color).

But what if, you ask, the safe house mutation came first? The population of moths has already gained the advantage of maximum longevity and has no need for camouflage. Light colors appear here and there over time, but never gain traction since they offer no evolutionary advantage. (like albinism or sixth fingers)

That's just the way it goes. The development of safe-house building moths displays natural selection in action, not its obsolescence. The moths didn't get together and decide to start building nests. They're just doing what their randomly mutated genes are telling them to do.

Sure, this cannot be said for humans so easily. We have the capacity to decide whether we put on camo, get to a safe place, or hit the gym. We can get our beefy brains around complicated problems like steel production and genetically engineered food (Woohoo! Unnatural selection!). So why do we need genes anymore?

The answer is: We don't. We never needed genes. Genes need us to ensure their transmission into the next generation. Furthermore, genes don't know anything; they just give us a blueprint and replicate. They don't know about the asphalt streets and air conditioning, they just keep on replicating with no regard to environment.

Then, a complicated mix of environment, timing, competition, food sources, predation, etc. determine which survival machines are best suited for reproduction. This happens over millions of years. In his/her lifetime a disadvantaged individual can become more successful as a survival machine (create more offspring) than an advantaged individual, but a disadvantaged gene will ALWAYS get weeded out through the eons.

In this respect, only the gene can become obsolete. The process of natural selection will always be at work as long as there is life.

As for the drastic change you mention in your edit, there is a flaw here. You seem to equate evolution with progress (stronger bones, tougher CNS, and so forth). It is important to note that evolution happens randomly at the mutation level. An individual might receive a mutated gene that gives him/her stronger bones, but that doesn't do anything for the new gene (let alone the species) until he/she makes babies that make babies that make babies until the gene finally gets a dominant presence in the gene pool. So the answer there is yes, if the catastrophe takes several generations to do its damage AND we get lucky with the mutations that occur in that tight window.

TL;DR: Natural selection is always going on, and various iterations of the gene that become obsolete as they are "selected" for failure. We will never see any substantive evolutionary change to a species occur within one human lifetime, but records show that it's simply the way life works in the grand scheme of things. Also, try to make some babies and die before the apocalypse comes.

u/Cognizant_Psyche · 1 pointr/exchristian

The obligatory two books are Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great (How Religion Poisons Everything). Both are fantastic, Dawkins tends to focus more on Christianity and Hitchens is more widespread showing how dangerous it is across the board with many diverse examples.

For a broader sense start reading up on Philosophy and other religions, you will find that Christianity is nothing special and is quite weak in some areas. Familiarize yourself with the fallacies that are common in religious explanations as well. This way when the indoctrination starts to creep up you can look at the reasons you believed and see through them for what they are. Such engrained behaviors can be hard to shake, especially when guilt is involved as religion is a master craft at guilt manipulation. Once you see through the magic trick it looses it's power.

Another great book is The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, it shows how evolution works from a genetic level. I know you said you accept evolution and that is great, this will give you a more in depth look into the mechanics of the process and how we are no different than any other life form aside from our development tree. Its easy to read and understand, in fact this book really helped me break away from some of the mentalities of religion since it shows how humans really arent anything special and are very young.

Another author is Sam Harris, he has a lot of books that can help a deconvert find meaning in things they once valued without the need for religion, on subjects like morality, free will, spirituality, and other aspects.

Here is Hitchens' book on youtube read by the man himself:

God is not Great

u/TheJonesJonesJones · 1 pointr/trees

To anyone who is really interested in this sort of thing, I suggest reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

u/NotFreeAdvice · 1 pointr/atheism

I am not totally sure what you are asking for actually exists in book form...which is odd, now that I think about it.

If it were me, I would think about magazines instead. And if you really want to push him, think about the following options:

  1. Science News, which is very similar to the front-matter of the leading scientific journal Science. This includes news from the past month, and some in-depth articles. It is much better written -- and written at a much higher level -- than Scientific American or Discover. For a very intelligent (and science-interested) high school student, this should pose little difficulty.
  2. The actual journal Science. This is weekly, which is nice. In addition to the news sections, this also includes editorials and actual science papers. While many of the actual papers will be beyond your son, he can still see what passes for presentation of data in the sciences, and that is cool.
  3. The actual journal Nature. This is also weekly, and is the british version of the journal Science. In my opinion, the news section is better written than Science, which is important as this is where your kid's reading will be mostly done. IN addition, Nature always has sections on careers and education, so that your son will be exposed to the more human elements of science. Finally, the end of nature always has a 1-page sci-fi story, and that is fun as well.
  4. If you must, you could try Scientific American or Discover, but if you really want to give your kid a cool gift, that is a challenge, go for one of the top three here. I would highly recommend Nature.

    If you insist on books...

    I see you already mentioned A Brief History of the Universe, which is an excellent book. However, I am not sure if you are going to get something that is more "in depth." Much of the "in depth" stuff is going to be pretty pop, without the rigorous foundation that are usually found in textbooks.

    If I had to recommend some books, here is what I would say:

  5. The selfish gene is one of the best "rigorous" pop-science books out there. Dawkins doesn't really go into the math, but other than that he doesn't shy away from the implications of the work.
  6. Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dennett is a great book. While not strictly science, per se, it does outline good philosophical foundations for evolution. It is a dense read, but good.
  7. On the more mathematical side, you might try Godel, Escher, Bach, which is a book that explores the ramifications of recrusiveness and is an excellent (if dense) read.
  8. You could also consider books on the history of science -- which elucidate the importance of politics and people in the sciences. I would recommend any of the following: The Double Helix, A man on the moon, The making of the atomic bomb, Prometheans in the lab, The alchemy of air, or A most damnable invention. There are many others, but these came to mind first.

    Hope that helps! OH AND GO WITH THE SUBSCRIPTION TO NATURE

    edit: added the linksssss
u/wynyx · 1 pointr/askscience

If you'd like to learn more about problems like this involving genes that don't confer survival advantage in the way you might expect, I recommend reading The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. It's very entertaining.

u/Anti-Christ · 1 pointr/childfree

Wow, thanks for opening up this subreddit. I never knew there were other people like me who have never wanted children until I ran across a reference to this subreddit on Bruce Schneier's "Crypto-Gram". Here is the less than flattering reference to ChildFree:

Among the details police have released is that
Harris and his wife, Leanna, told them they
conducted Internet searches on how hot a car
needed to be to kill a child. Stoddard testified
Thursday that Ross Harris had visited a
Reddit page called "child-free" and read
four articles. He also did an Internet search
on how to survive in prison, Stoddard said.

I certainly don't condone any type of murder, much less of a child but I do prefer to avoid the little monsters as much as possible.

>“The only thing I can say about Mr. W. C. Fields, whom I have admired since the day he advanced upon Baby LeRoy with an icepick, is this: Any man who hates babies and dogs can’t be all bad.” -- Leo Rosten (1939)



Edit to add this: What we are fighting is a basic, fundamental inherited genetic drive in most people to reproduce their DNA. This is probably a more primitive human urge even than the belief in gods, spirits, demons, and ghosts by the uneducated to "explain" the things they do not understand. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins discusses this in detail and is highly recommended reading.


u/Inferno · 1 pointr/funny

Your warping the facts.

>Reduced physical activity,3 particularly from reduced school-based physical education,4 and specific food manufacturing and marketing practices (e.g., vending machines in schools,5 increased portion size,6 increased availability of fast-food,3, 7, 8 use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)9) comprise the Big Two explanations proffered for the obesity epidemic and are frequently cited as targets of potential public health interventions. We do not intend to imply that the Big Two are not salient contributors to the epidemic. Rather, we offer that the evidence of their role as primary players in producing the epidemic (as well as the evidence supporting their potential ability to reverse the trend if manipulated) is both equivocal and largely circumstantial – that is, the hypothesized effects are underdetermined by the data.

They are stating that Reduced physical activity and specific food manufacturing are the two factors. THis is because they know (like any intelligent person) that if you take in a lot of calories and don't burn them, you'll get fat. Learn to read and/or substituting your own facts into the article.

>There's the CDC (who also have an extensive section devoted to obesity, which belies the notion that is a simple concept): http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/contributing_factors.htm

>Overall there are a variety of factors that play a role in obesity. This makes it a complex health issue to address.

There are factors as to why there is an epidemic, but the root cause of fat people is high calorie intake with too low levels of exercise to burn off the excess calories. Your cite does not dispute my argument in the least.

>That's what you aren't getting. It has been, in the past, socially desirable to be obese (Egyptions, Romans, even various stages of British royalty demonstrate this). The basis for the desire isn't what is healthy, but rather much like a winter tan (or in developing nations, being pale), it is what is difficult to achieve (or more accurately, harder to achieve for those who aren't wealthy) given the current state of society.

You also need to realize that medicine at this time was little more than prayer. The understanding of healthy was minimal at best, especially since most wouldn't live nearly as long as we do today. Times and social norms change.

Also, human sexuality doesn't evolve towards things that are hard to do, rather what is more healthy. Fat at that time was a sign of being healthy as there was so much famine in the area. Between the two extremes (starving and gluttony) gluttony wins, but it doesn't make it a healthy choice.

>Losing significant amounts of weight is brutal. It requires an unrelenting focus and quite severe discomfort. It effects you physical health, mental health, your job performance, and your social life (and none in a good way). Sure the end goal provides a big payoff, but it's a hell of a ride, and when you get there you still have underlying problems, because it is far easier to regain the weight you lost at the end. The success rate in terms of keeping the weight off, regardless of diet/exercise regime is 2-5%. That means if you are effective 10% of the time, you are a health guru! And it's not that these people are lazy or lack discipline, because they will keep trying again and again, despite the failure!

Extreme weight drops are medically dangerous. This is why starving yourself is bad. It has to be gradual, just like how people pack it on, if you do it over a very small amount of time, you'll run into HUGE medical problems as well. If your smart, eat right (real food as opposed to empty calories) and have a good exercise plan, you will have little to no problems what so ever. TO avoid Kidney stones, be sure to drink LOTS of water, not only will it flush your system of toxins, it'll keep your kidneys flushed and healthy. This may lead to short-term water-retention however if your unaccustomed to drinking so much water.

>Yup totally missing the mark. I'm not suggesting it is a disease. I'm merely suggesting that prejudicial attitudes towards the obese are just that: prejudice, not the product of some well founded rational process.

Then you don't understand how the mind works. We make millions of subconscious calculations of risk and probabilities every day. It's programmed into our minds to do so. This is why you can find someone attractive, your brain does symmetry calculations, as well as "is this person free of disease, do they have child bearing hips, etc". You can't deny the fact that our brains make calculations and decisions on the fly.

Two great books on this subject are Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works and Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. Both talk about these calculations and how they evolved into these set of automatic rules and calculations, that you seemingly refer to as prejudice.

You either define prejudice very loosely or include it as any reason we choose one thing over another. I choose to eat a sandwich over a pile of feces because I'm prejudice. I choose a beautiful wife over an ugly one because I'm prejudice. I prefer healthy citizens over fat ones because I'm prejudice.

I think I grasp what you mean now, but I still think your fractally wrong on the idea. it's not prejudice you see, but the wonders of the brain picking the better choices for our genes, and by extension, ourselves which is not quite the same thing.

u/oak45 · 1 pointr/ukpolitics

I was playing the altruistic angels-advocate. But I agree that being generous to a fault will not solve the problem, and in the long run it harms the country, and more immediately it is unfair on me and you. I am glad that there is a right-leaning crackdown on the benefit system under lib-con, but I worry about the damage that a hasty chop can do to the parts of the system that work.

As an aside: theres a chapter in the selfish gene on behavioural strategies in populations, which I think applies to benefit exploitation quite well.

u/DigitalMindShadow · 1 pointr/softscience

I would highly recommend that you read this book to gain a better understanding of how evolution by natural selection works.

u/SaylahVie · 1 pointr/harrypotter

I highly recommend you read this book then! It shows why seemingly altruistic behaviors can actually be selfish and result in greater benefits to the individual if it means genetic survival.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Selfish-Gene-Edition-Introduction/dp/0199291152

u/GP4LEU · 1 pointr/genetics

I would read "The Selfish Gene" By Richard Dawkins. It is a fantastic read about the general ideas of genetics. I read it when in high school and it absolutely blew my mind. Here is the link to the book on amazon.

u/MrsLCA · 1 pointr/nerdfighters

Does this mean that existentialists believe in a meaning for life? Or that meaning is irrelevant for life to exist? Or that Humans create meaning in order to live? Or that meaning creates Humans to exist?

Also, is it wrong to think that Humans are an unfortunate byproduct of our genes trying to survive (see Dawkin's book )

u/davemuscato · 0 pointsr/philosophy

Natural selection has selected for altruism/cooperation on the level of individuals (see Hamilton's rule), but there is no altruism at the level of genes, which is where natural selection actually takes place (see The Selfish Gene).

I'm not an objectivist, but I'm just to be clear here... are you trying to say that evolution does not select for altruism/cooperation, or that it does?

u/Dustin_00 · 0 pointsr/Conservative

Actually, it does those as well:

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Passionate Marriage

The Selfish Gene

Science can put ethics to the test, just like any other activity.