Which richard dawkins book to start with

The rest is history. I guess because I felt so cheated by religion, since reading Coyne's book I've been adamant about gaining more knowledge on the subject especially in regards to religion etc. I can't stand his writing style as I find its more of a memoir than an educational read.

Anyway, to get to the point, I was wondering if anyone in or previously in a similar position or with a similar interest in mind can recommend any books for a person like myself, with limited knowledge on the subjects. I'm also very interested to eventually read all of Dawkins' books, but I'm not sure which I should begin with?

Both are great reads and break it down in a way that makes it easy to explain to others. Report abuse. I was just kidding about Richard. You should definitely start with The Selfish Gene.

I never even understood evolution, not really, until I read that book. Hi nblizzard, former fundie preacher here! When I was leaving the faith, one of the books that allowed me to understand, is absolutely gorgeously bound and printed, and allowed me to see the fantastically long-reaching effects of evolution through beautiful photography of animal skeletons, is:.

It is so magnificently written and will truly broaden your understanding of the reason for natural selection. I could list it as first place in my collection of evolutionary literature specifically because it expounds natural selection through short sections on specific animals and utilzes fantastic photography. If you are looking for arguments FOR evolution, anything by Dawkins really. However, my plan is to start with the Selfish Gene and work my way up through his works as he published them.

I have Origin of Species and it is also a great book, although I think Dawkins is a little easier to read. Origin is a product of a different time, so it can be hard to follow at times, but its nowhere near as difficult as Shakespeare, if that puts it into perspective. Are you looking for atheist books as well? Great books those two. There are many more on this subject, and I am collecting those as well. I have the full Richard Dawkins Set, and I recommend reading them in order, to follow along as the science and evidence developed over 40 years.

They all complement each other, while exploring different areas and approaches to the various subjects he engages with. Welcome to the world of scientific inquiry, nblizzard. I think I sense your excitement at standing before a great banquet of knowledge. You can almost not go wrong, you know, the worst being that one or another book will not be as much of a page-turner as the others.

He buttonholes his readers; he dazzles with paradox and provocation. So zeitgeisty was it that, from first publication, the reception of The Selfish Gene was highly favourable. Initially, it was not seen as a controversial book, Dawkins wrote later.

This is undeniable: while The Selfish Gene grew out of orthodox neo-Darwinian ideas, it actually expressed Darwinism in a way that Darwin himself might have welcomed. Rather than focus on the individual organism, it looked at nature from the perspective of the gene. This was a high-low cohort that swiftly propelled it on to bestseller lists worldwide. He wanted his description to embrace all animals, plants, bacteria and viruses.

I'm reading a collection of Bateson's essays now, some of which rely more heavily than others on biological evolution. Aha, thanks. Yes, there was a huge vogue of "cybernetics" in the fifties-mid-sixties, coinciding with a vogue for anthropology, sociology and other social sciences. Bateson I think I had him mistaken for someone else If you haven't looked into it already, you might be interested in the more recent work by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela on autopoiesis and emergence, as it relates to evolution of cognition.

I hope Dawkins is sufficiently informative on evolution for your purposes Thanks for those, they look suitably fascinating. Do you recommend anyone who treats of the mathematical models, without assuming the same mathematics of the reader? If nothing else, such a work could help highlight the assumptions and biases of the qualitative approaches I favour.

Perhaps my expectations would be misleading to you, it's just that any nexus of evolution and information theory to my mind presupposes a certain amount of mathematisation and modelling. But, I haven't read Bateson so don't know where he's coming from or going to, and as Dawkins seems to answer your needs In case questions arise, I suppose a lot of wanted info can be found online. If you do find yourself wanting a comprehensive more detailed treatment of evolution including the basics of population genetics and ecological models --and if you can get it cheap!

Preferably for free I feel awful every time I lead someone to buy a textbook --I'll put in a good word for Douglas Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology. The Selfish Gene is a very good layperson's book on evoution, addressing some pretty deep questions about how evoution works and proposing an answer that seems to be widely adopted.

For the record: "the selfish gene" is NOT a gene for selfishness - it's the idea that the gene is the unit of replication, not the organism or the species - this becomes clear in reading, but it's a common misconception The Blind Watchmaker is a head-on challenge to a specific question about the intersection of religion and evolutionary biology, the argument from design.

This is Dawkins on religion, but far less polemical than the God Delusion - possibly that's a better place to start if you want to read RD working closer to his home turf. That might be right up your alley. I've not read it, and it does seem a good candidate, thanks for the tip! Group: Happy Heathens 1, members 29, messages.

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