Secret Science Club: Welcoming Richard Dawkins
“From his first page, Dawkins unfolds an exhilarating and combative narrative of the gene’s-eye view of life with infectious brio. The Selfish Gene, he declares, should be read ‘almost as though it were science fiction. It is designed to appeal to the imagination.’ Part of the book’s compulsion derives from Dawkins’s appealing certainty that he is exploring a scientific world in which ‘we are survival machines — robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes’. This insight, he reports, is ‘a truth which still fills me with astonishment’.” — The 100 best nonfiction books: No 10 — The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
On November 15th, Richard Dawkins will join Secret Science Club North at Symphony Space to commemorate the 40th anniversary of his internationally bestselling book The Selfish Gene. The evolutionary biologist will discuss a lifetime of thinking and writing about science, including his other books The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, and The God Delusion.
Are our bodies merely vehicles for ensuring the immortality of our genes? How can selfish genes support kindness and altruism? Why does our understanding of the evolution of life matter?
First published in 1976, The Selfish Gene details Dawkins’s take on the theory of natural selection. The book garnered attention and sparked conversations both inside and out of the scientific community. As our knowledge of the genome grows by leaps and bounds in the 21st century, Dawkins continues to change and challenge our view of Earth’s life forms and our own human experience.
