Richard Dawkins Books - My Top 5 Picks

Richard Dawkins - Science Hero

Ever since evolutionary biology sparked my interest and I became almost a bit obsessed to gain a broader understanding of earth's natural history, I have been an avid fan of his lecture videos, documentaries, books & audio-books.
Dawkins explains scientific terms & studies with such simplicity and precision, which makes it easier to understand if your science education is not intermediate.

Here are my 5 Favorite Dawkins Books, with a mini review of each book:

a Homosapien reading The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life

5.
The Selfish Gene
Publication Date: 1976

In his 1st book he explains over 3.5 billion years ago, in a primordial soup of molecules, the first, simplest life form on earth came to be  a molecule able to copy itself, defined as a replicator. He describes the basic principles of genetics & molecular biology and how evolution is driven by varying abilities and limited resources. 

Some of the key points that he explains are:

The survival success of a gene is dependent on its particular environment, both physical and genetic. A gene’s phenotype (the way its code is manifested in its environment), this determines its survival. Organisms are machines built by groups of genes that cooperate only because they share a reproductive mechanism. Genes program the brains they build with behavioral strategies that help their survival. Mutually altruistic behaviors are often successful, because they benefit the host’s genes more than purely selfish behaviors do. (Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for happiness of other human beings or other animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual).
Conscious human foresight can help us overcome the downsides of biological gene selfishness.

Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularized the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. He coined the term "Meme", originally referring to an unit of cultural information spread by imitation. Basically dna or rna that is transmitted from one generation to the next, a genetic unit that is a "Gene" where "Meme" is the "cultural information" equivalent.

In this book Dawkins also elaborates about the term "Phenotype". The term "Phenotype" refers to the observable physical properties of an organism; these include the organism's appearance, development, and behavior. An organism's phenotype is determined by its genotype, which is the set of genes the organism carries, as well as by environmental influences upon these genes.

Dawkins dedicates another book to explaining this biological concept his book The Extended Phenotype. I have not read this book yet, only a basic summary, but I intent to do so in the future.

4.

The Blind Watchmaker

Publication Date: 1986

This was the first audio-book version of a Dawkins book that I listened to, and I was also mesmerized when I watched the 1987 documentary of the same name, that basically covers most major topics of the book.

Dawkins challenges William Paley's theories on creationism and takes on Paley's descendants. In his choice of the title for this book, Dawkins refers to the watchmaker analogy made famous by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology, Paley, writing long before Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, held that the complexity of living organisms was evidence of the existence of a divine creator by drawing a parallel with the way in which the existence of a watch compels belief in an intelligent watchmaker. Dawkins, in contrasting the differences between human design and its potential for planning with the workings of natural selection, therefore dubbed evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker.

He also presents arguments to refute certain criticisms made on his first book, The Selfish Gene. What makes this book & also the documentary extremely interesting is the way Dawkins explains the evolutionary history of certain animals, such as the complexity of the eye, and how the eye of various creatures have evolved to adapt to the living environments of each animals and also the functions of various traits that are survival mechanisms in animals.   

3.

River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

Publication Date: 1995

I would consider this book my personal favorite of Dawkins's writings,  

along with  The Ancestors's Tale & The Greatest Show on Earth.

They are all fantastic in their own way! 

The book's name is derived from Genesis 2:10 relating to the Garden of Eden. The King James Version reads "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads."

This is quite a short read for a Dawkins book with only 5 chapter & 172 pages.

The audio-book version is fantastic and is finished just over 5 hours.

"A Darwinian View of Life" does the subtitle justice. 

The book covers various evolutionary topics and summarizes some topics 

covered in his earlier books.

The topics covered in this book includes:

The Gene-centered view of evolution as discussed in his book The Selfish Gene.

Most recent common ancestor and Coalescent theory.

Criticism of creationism such as topics discussed in his book The Blind Watchmaker.

The meaning/purpose of life from a Darwinian perspective.

Self-replicating entities or the phenomenon of heredity (That he calls "The replication bomb").

This last chapter summarises milestones during the evolution of life on earth and speculates on how similar processes may work in alien planetary systems.

If you only have time to read 1 new book on evolutionary science topics, I would definitely recommend River Out of Eden. Dawkins has many fantastic books on various scientific topics, but this book is a good and short summary that sums up allot of his research and other books.

2.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Publication Date: 2009

This book is really great & thoroughly interesting.

I could best describe this book as "The Blind Watchmaker on Steroids"   

A great summary of the research & books Professor Dawkins has done over the years.

This book blows oung Earth Creationism & other forms of "Pseudoscience" out of the water.

For this one I would definitively recommend the audio-book version. The Audio-book has fantastic narration with both Dawkins & Lalla Ward sharing the microphone, and there are parts filled with dry humor best enjoyed by listening to Lalla Ward's narration, as she narrates Dawkins's polemics against Pseudoscience & "Crack-pottery". With the Audible audio-book version you do get a accompanying PDF. file to view the image references of the book as well.  

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about evolution, natural selection & natural sciences. Although this book is serious science, the humor debunking Pseudoscience is spectacular and this makes the book thoroughly enjoyable.

1.

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life

Publication Date: 1st edition 2004, 2nd edition 2016

This is probably my personal favorite Dawkins book!

Like I keep repeating... it is really hard to choose.

The book is co-authored evolutionary biologist & TV presenter Yan Wong.

I first purchased the audio-book version of this book, and although the audio version is fantastic I would definitely recommend a hard copy or the e-book/kindle version. This is a visual journey, and the hard copy provides some stunning photos of the organisms/animals discussed and there are also fantastic diagram illustrations that demonstrate the tree of life and how all life on earth connects.   

The book takes a different path backwards through evolution and meets different groupings of organisms. Dawkins uses backward chronology instead of normal chronology as a way of celebrating the unity of life. In this backwards chronology, the ancestors of any set of species must eventually meet at a particular moment. The last common ancestor is the one that they all share which he calls a "concestor". The oldest concestor is the ancestor of all surviving life forms on this planet. The evidence for this is that all living organisms share the same genetic code and was not invented twice. There is no sign of other independent origins of life, and if new ones would now arise, they would probably be eaten by bacteria. 

The book is beautifully & almost poetically written.  Discussing different "Animal Tales",

such as the tales of All Humankind (modern homsapiens & their hominid ancestors),  the great apes like the Chimpanzees & Bonobos, Gorillas, Orangutans & other primates. a Special tale about the extinction of  the Dodo bird, and interesting tales about various prehistoric animals, all the way to bacteria & single cell organism evolution to the origin of life itself.

This book is a beautifully crafted masterpiece of scientific literature, and  I would recommendation this book to any open-minded nature & science lover to embark on this pilgrimage of life & evolution.

Reviews by Frank