---
title: selfish gene
date: 2008-03-15
keywords: [books, science, dawkins]
---

Today I've just bought a copy of [The Selfish Gene] by [Richard
Dawkins]. I'm looking forward to reading this, I've read so much about
it and couldn't find it in a bookstore anywhere. Eventually found it in
a [Borders] in the new [Rouse Hill Town Centre][rhtc].

![Cover of "Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins](2008-03-15.selfish_gene.webp)

I can't believe the size of the Borders there, it's *huge*! I wandered
around in it for a while and then realised there's a second floor that's
even bigger. I think I'll visit it often. Most bookstores near where I
live are small and don't have well stocked special interest sections
(eg [Pop-Sci]), sometimes only a shelf or two of the most popular or
recently published books. The new Borders has whole rows dedicated to
individual special interest topics, it's great. I'll get my nerd freak
on in there for sure :smile:

Anyway, [The Selfish Gene] should be good, I'm expecting a good read
from it. Even [Douglas Adams] was a inspired by it, judging from his
interview with [The American Atheist] done in 1998:

> So I became an Agnostic. And I thought and thought and thought. But
> I just did not have enough to go on, so I didn't really come to any
> resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the idea of god, but I
> just didn't know enough about anything to have a good working model
> of any other explanation for, well, life, the universe and everything
> to put in its place. But I kept at it, and I kept reading and I kept
> thinking.
>
> Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary
> biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins's books The
> Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker and suddenly (on, I think
> the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was
> a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally,
> to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it
> inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of
> religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe
> of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

After [The Selfish Gene] it'll be onto something by [Daniel C Dennett],
most probably [Breaking the Spell].

[The Selfish Gene]: http://amzn.to/sOGObb
[Richard Dawkins]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/entity/Richard-Dawkins/B000AQ3RBI/?ie=UTF8&tag=marshws-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957
[Borders]: http://www.borders.com.au/home.asp
[rhtc]: http://www.rousehilltowncentre.com.au
[Pop-Sci]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_science
[Douglas Adams]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/entity/Douglas-Adams/B000AQ2A84/?ie=UTF8&tag=marshws-20&linkCode=ur2&qid=1325255834&camp=1789&sr=1-2&creative=390957
[The American Atheist]: http://www.americanatheist.org/win98-99/T2/silverman.html
[Daniel C Dennett]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/entity/Daniel-C.-Dennett/B000AQ21XS/?ie=UTF8&tag=marshws-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957
[Breaking the Spell]: http://amzn.to/s3Zds1