Darwin’s Evolution, Remixed

I’ve started reading The Selfish Gene, and the first thing to know is: Don’t judge this book by its title. I predicted this book was going to be a series of scientific terms to prove a new theory of evolution written by the author, boring. It turns out this book is much more than that. Author Richard Dawkins is able to explain evolution in a simple way by using metaphors and plain wording. The author develops his opinion by bending Darwin’s theory to his fit.

“Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable” (Pg. 12)

Dawkins reconstructs the reader’s understanding of the evolution theory by starting from the begging. The way he is able to start from the true beginning of life is marvelous. What seams different in this book is how the writing is contracted. Instead of starting with a mild introduction, Dawkins starts with his re-adaptation of the theory and then continues to prove it, or really just explain it to us. Seams as if the author is writing a scientific paper: thesis, experiment, and then the findings. Although it seams odd, the scientific writing style feels right and gives the writing a great feel.

“It is no good taking the right number of atoms and shaking them together with some external energy till they happen to fall into the right pattern, and out drops Adam!” (Pg. 14)

The satirical humor in this book is fantastic, it certainly makes this book entertaining. In the excerpt Dawkins uses absurdity to make creationists look dumb. Although the author knows not many people today believe in creation, he is targeting some religions that continue to do so. He takes creation and demonstrates that is “improbable” that out of the nothing man came into existence. Using Darwin’s theory as his base, Dawkins is able to make his point on how creation is based on the stability in chemical bonds and not just the spark of god. He goes on to explain how mutations may be good, the same as a mistranslation from Hebrew to Greek in the bible.  “…Septuagint could at least be said to have started something big  when they mistranslated the Hebrew for ‘young woman’ into the Greek word for ‘Virgin’…” (Pg 16)

The subtle attacks on the bible aren’t all that makes this book great. The simple explanations with the use of metaphors is what makes a complicated subject so easy. “Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from sealed the outside world communicating wit it by torturous indirect routes, manipulating by remote control. They are in you and me…”(pg. 19) Instead of explaining with complicated vocabulary how organisms have become colonies, Dawkins uses a machine as the perfect explanation to how we are. I look forwards to more of these awesome metaphors.