Book Review: The Selfish Gene
Decoding the Gurus
Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2024
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this special international episode of Decoding the Gurus, Chris and Matt jump on the hottest online topic and devote an hour to reviewing Richard Dawkins' influential work from the 1970s, The Selfish Gene. This book influenced Matt and Chris when they were teenage decoders, but how does it hold up now that they have evolved into (quasi)adult forms?
Based on their rereading of the book they discuss its contribution to the public understanding of evolution, the academic and public controversies it sparked, and Dawkins' broader contributions to science communication and... the culture war. Consideration is given to the criticisms raised by figures like Stephen Jay Gould and Mary Midgley, the implications of seeing humans as meat machines constructed by genes, and what should be understood as the book's core message.
So join Chris and Matt as they confront their true nature as gene propagators but also argue that it is possible to simultaneously recognise the importance of human cultural & social development and our genetic & biological legacies.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And Oh, Hello and welcome to decoding the Guru's with the cognitive anthropologist me, Chris Kavna, the psychologist of unnamed sub-food, Matthew Brown, over there. |
| 0:41.0 | And as it happens this is an international broadcast a dispatch episode. |
| 0:48.0 | Because usually as you know this is a transnational podcast that we pride ourselves on. |
| 0:54.7 | We have an Irish man corresponding from Japan and we previously had an Australian in Australia |
| 1:01.3 | in its native habitat where it should be kept but it's managed to break out of its |
| 1:06.6 | boundaries and now it's foraging over in the United States. |
| 1:10.0 | Matt is joining us from San Francisco. |
| 1:13.0 | Hello, Matt. |
| 1:15.2 | Hello, yeah. |
| 1:16.8 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 1:18.0 | I know all about that. |
| 1:19.4 | Introduce species that can be a big problem. |
| 1:21.4 | But I'm causing no troubles over here I'm wanting my |
| 1:24.2 | behavior actually we're not in San Francisco Chris we have headed north and we're |
| 1:29.0 | at Fort Bragg over the Golden Gate and investigated the beach. |
| 1:35.0 | There we go. Okay, you managed to find the beach. |
| 1:39.0 | Australia is good at that. |
| 1:40.0 | So yeah, and also just to warn people that you might not be hearing math at his full audio fidelity that you used to. |
| 1:50.0 | That's because he has brought his special podcasting microphone with him, but he forgot that he can't plug it in |
| 1:57.4 | provide a dongley thing to the max. |
| 1:59.8 | So we will, we will increase our auto quality, but for day it's a little bit lower down. |
| 2:06.0 | The upside of it is the chair is possibly less squeaky in this hotel. |
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