Matt Ridley: Genes attacking themselves

Click on the title links to order the book at Amazon.com in the U.S.A.
or click on (Amazon.de) to order the book at Amazon.de in Europe
or click on (Amazon.fr) to order the book at Amazon.fr in France.
(Eventhough Amazon.de does not yet carry all US books available at Amazon.com, I always added the corresponding link to Amazon.de for the case that they will become available later.)
After you clicked at a direct link from this page which will take you to Amazon, please come back to this page if you intend to check out more books. Please use the direct links provided here to purchase any book at Amazon. Thank you!

Matt Ridley: Genome - an autobiography of a species, 1999, available in english (Amazon.com) - (Amazon.de) - (Amazon.fr) and now also in german (Amazon.de): Alphabet des Lebens - Die Geschichte des menschlichen Genoms -

A quote from p92: "Marxism fell when the Berlin wall was built, though it took until the wall came down before some people realised that subservience to an all-powerfull state could not be made enjoyable however much propaganda accompanied it."

Ridley explains for example, why bacteria genetically speaking are more advanced living organisms than the more complex creatures, because they do not need the RNA mechanisms in order to proliferate.

Also I found it quite astonishing that - quote from p84:

"when you grow up and accumulate experiences, the influence of your genes increases. What? Surely, it falls off? No: ... As you grow up, you gradually express your own intelligence and leave behind the influences stamped on you by others. ... This proves two vital things: that genetic influences are not frozen at conception and that environmental influences are not inexorably cumulative. Heritability does not mean immutability."

"... It explains why unemployment and welfare dependency are so good at making people ill. No alpha-male monkey was ever such an intransigent and implacable controller of subordinates' lives as the social services of the state are of people dependent on welfare."

"... The economy is such a [interconnected] system [that have no control centers]. The illusion that economies run better if somebody is put in charge of them - and decides what gets manufactured where and when - has done devasting harm to the wealth and health of peoples all over the world, not just in the Soviet Union, but in the west as well." "Full responsibility for one's actions is a necessary fiction without which the law would flounder, but it is a fiction all the same. To the extent that you act in character you are responsible for your actions; yet acting in character is merely expressing the many determinisms that caused your character. David Hume found himself impaled on this dilemma, subsequently named Hume's fork. Either our actions are determined, in which case we are not responsible for them, or they are random, in which case we are not responsible for them.

"The interaction of genetic and external influences makes my behaviour unpredictable, but not undetermined. In the gap between those words lies freedom."

I knew about Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" for 10 years, when friend (a neuroscientist) recommended it to me, but only many years later I bought it. Again I delayed reading until early last year another admirable person convinced me to finally read it. (He said, only one such book is written every 50 years.) Fortunately the latest edition had some some additional chapters which I found the most interesting.

"Genome" could be a worthy successor of "The Selfish Gene".

An earlier book about evolution from Mat Ridley: The Red Queen - Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, 1994, (Amazon.de) - (Amazon.fr). is very interesting too. Its title is an allure to Lewis Carroll's Alice and the Red Queen who run as fast as possible to remain in the same place. This compares to the arms race between competing genes.

More Book Recommendations

• Software development general
• Hardware architecture
• Economy, political philosophy, liberty, free markets
• Reader reviews of books written by Michio Kitahara about the Decline of the West (political philosophy)
• Science, evolution, complexity, and chaos
• Mathematical Recreation
• Algorithms
• Personal Finance
• Internet and hackers
• Fiction
• Ayn Rand Fiction and Objectivism
• Ayn Rand: Selected Publications
• Robert Harris: Communism attacking Thrillers
• Matt Ridley: Genes attacking themselves
• Health & Food, e.g.: Stevia - A Tale of Incredible Sweetness and Intrigue