Book · 1976
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins
A biologist argues you're not really driving the car — your genes are, and they've been doing it since before there was a you.
What does Reddit think of The Selfish Gene?
r/AskScience doesn't discuss The Selfish Gene so much as cite it, the way you'd cite a textbook. Someone asks about evolutionary game theory, an answer points to Dawkins (↑25). Someone asks why ants sacrifice themselves for the colony, another answer explains kin relatedness with the book as the source (↑42). The recurring move is reframing: a ↑58 commenter says the book massively reframed my understanding of evolution, specifically knocking down the individual-level version of survival of the fittest taught in school in favor of the gene-level account. One thread even traces the word meme back to its coinage here (↑68), treating that as almost a footnote next to the main argument. Nobody in these excerpts pushes back on the science. That's partly the nature of AskScience threads, where the book gets deployed as an answer key rather than argued over, so treat the positive lean here as agreement on content, not a verdict on the prose.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Evolution reframed at the level of the gene, not the individual or species
- · Kin selection and ant-colony self-sacrifice explained through genetic relatedness
- · Origin point for the term meme, almost mentioned in passing
- · Cited as a source in answers, not discussed as a reading experience
Common praise
- + A ↑58 commenter says it massively reframed my understanding of the process of evolution, specifically the school-taught survival-of-the-fittest version.
- + It's the go-to citation (↑42) for explaining why worker ants have no reproductive stake but still protect the colony.
- + One answer (↑68) traces meme itself back to this book, treating the coinage as a minor detail next to the larger argument.
Common criticism
- − Every excerpt uses the book to answer someone else's question; none of them evaluate it as a book, so there's no data here on pacing, tone, or difficulty.
- − A ↑26 comment is still early in reading it and hasn't formed a view yet, which is close to the ceiling of critical distance on display.
- − With only 25 recognized mentions total, this reputation rests on a small, single-subreddit sample.
Who it's for
This is the book to hand someone who was taught survival of the fittest in tenth grade biology and never had it corrected. r/AskScience treats it less as a recommendation and more as a citation, the kind of source you link when someone asks why ants don't mind dying for their colony. If you want the gene-level account of evolution explained in the terms that made the word meme happen in the first place, the thread activity says this is still where people point. It won't teach you to write like Dawkins; nobody displayed here is reviewing the prose.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Selfish Gene?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“Richard Dawkins put forth a theory in 'The Selfish Gene' (I don't think it was completely original) that ideas and memories actually drove our brains to get larger and become more focused on this function. He actually coined the term 'meme' to describe this phenomenon. Susan Blackmore expanded thi…
“I'd recommend reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. This book massively reframed my understanding of the process of evolution. The Darwinian explanation that we are taught in schools of "survival of the fittest" is only partially correct as it leads us to think in terms of individuals. This …
“I learned a lot about ants and why they are so self-less in one of the best scientific books I have ever read: “the selfish gene”. It has whole chapters on ants. Basically, all ants in a colony are almost perfect genetic clones, so there is no genetic advantage in protecting themselves over protec…
“Thank you for writing this comment. It was really informative and gave me a new appreciation for life at a microscopic scale. I recently started reading The Selfish Gene. I can't help but think of the early stages of life and how it must have started organizing around proteins in the natural environ…
“This gets into Evolutionary Game Theory, which applies game theory to evolutionary biology. Richard Dawkins discusses this very thoroughly in his book The Selfish Gene. Overall, a group will act in a way that generally promotes an "evolutionari…
“Genocentric view of evolution. The selfish gene by richard Dawkins. Pre cheap dna logging so a bit dated but good read
“In Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene he talks about a species of fish that uses predator satiation. The fish all clump into a big ball. Those with the genetic trait of being good at getting to the middle of the big ball survive by predator being satiated before getting to the middle of the ball.…
“Dawkins book 'The Selfish Gene' really opened my eyes in terms of understanding evolution -- i.e., as favoring genes that are most likely to end up in future generations rather than favoring the 'fittest' individual organisms. Do the ideas in that book still hold up or has the thinking in the field …
“You may be very interested in reading *The Selfish Gene* by Richard Dawkins. It's his first book back when he was known for being an evolutionary biologist rather than an anti-theist, and so mostly stays on topic. It's from the 70s, but it's still a great layman's introduction to how evolution works…
“There's a really good book called the selfish gene that talks about this. If you're helping yoir family and your tribe, then your genes are still being propagated to the future. Evolution doesn't care about the individual, only about the genes that are passed on.
“The Blind Watchmaker and the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I also enjoyed Relics of Eden which is more focused on how evolution occurs through DNA.
“I second this recommendation, my father bought me this several Christmas ago and it is such an interesting read; changed my whole understanding of evolution. I have since bought and read all of his books, obviously The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype are the main ones but they are all worth …
“You should really read Richard dawkins's The selfish Gene. Not only is it an excellent book but will answer your question. In short: The fundamental unit of reproduction is not the species, nor the colony, nor the individual themselves. It is the gene. Follow that through to its logical conclusio…
“It's a well studied part of evolutionary theory. "The selfish gene" by Dawkins is the most obvious pop-sci book which covers it in a decent depth, worth a read. The classic "survival of the fittest" explanation doesn't properly describe how actual evolution works, there's a lot of nuance it misses a…
“the selfish gene - richard dawkins ​ ton's of examples of how this works.
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The Selfish Gene — frequently asked
Is The Selfish Gene still the right book for understanding evolution?+
Reddit's science crowd still reaches for it. A ↑58 r/AskScience commenter says it massively reframed their understanding of evolution, replacing the individual-level survival-of-the-fittest version taught in school with the gene-centered account. Multiple other answers cite it directly to explain kin selection and evolutionary game theory, which suggests it's still functioning as a working reference, not just a historical artifact.
Does The Selfish Gene actually explain why ants sacrifice themselves for the colony?+
Yes, according to a ↑42 r/AskScience comment that credits the book with a full chapter on exactly this, explaining that worker ants are near-perfect genetic clones, so protecting the colony protects their own genetic material without needing individual reproduction.
Did The Selfish Gene really coin the word meme?+
That's the claim in a ↑68 r/AskScience answer, which credits Dawkins with the term as part of a broader argument that ideas propagate the way genes do. The comment treats it as one piece of a larger case rather than the book's main point, which the other excerpts back up — most citations are about genes, not memes.