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Author: Richard Dawkins
ISBN : B00GPONW1E
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Download for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link By the best selling author of The Selfish Gene
'This entertaining and thought-provoking book is an excellent illustration of why the study of evolution is in such an exciting ferment these days.'
Science
'The Extended Phenotype is a sequel to The Selfish Gene . . . he writes so clearly it could be understood by anyone prepared to make the effort'
John Maynard Smith, London Review of Books
'Dawkins is quite incapable of being boring this characteristically brilliant and stimulating book is original and provocative throughout, and immensely enjoyable.'
G. A. Parker, Heredity
'The extended phenotype is certainly a big idea and it is pressed hard in dramatic language.'
Sydney Brenner, Nature
'Richard Dawkins, our most radical Darwinian thinker, is also our best science writer.'
Douglas Adams
'Dawkins is a superb communicator. His books are some of the best books ever written on science.'
Megan Tressider, Guardian
'Dawkins is a genius of science popularization.'
Mark Ridley, The TimesDirect download links available for Free The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science) [Kindle Edition]
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- File Size: 993 KB
- Print Length: 325 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0192880519
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; Revised edition (March 4, 1999)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00GPONW1E
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,133 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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- #11
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Genetics - #45
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Evolution - #60
in Books > Medical Books > Basic Sciences > Genetics
Free The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene
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Biodiversity is more than a buzzword for ecologists. Variation gives life its grandeur, and Richard Dawkins gives us a description of the workings of variation. Fortunately, with a sharp mind and sharper wit, he has the ability to deliver this portrayal so that nearly everyone can understand it. That's not to say this book is an easy read. Although he delivers his narration as if sitting with you in a quiet study, you may still need to review his words more than once. That's not a challenge or a chore, it's a pleasure.Dawkins, unlike other science writers, is forthright in declaring his advocacy in writing this book. It's a refreshing start to his most serious effort. After publication of The Selfish Gene led to a storm of fatuous criticism, Extended Phenotype comes in response with more detail of how the gene manifests itself in the organism and its environment. It's clear that Dawkins' critics, who label him an "Ultra-Darwinist" [whatever that is] haven't read this book. His critics frequently argue that The Selfish Gene doesn't operate in a vacuum, but must deal within some kind of environment, from an individual cell to global scenarios. Dawkins deftly responds to critics in describing how genes rely on their environment for successful replication. If the replication doesn't survive in the environment it finds itself, then it, and perhaps its species, will die out.
The child's favourite question, "why" is difficult enough for parents and teachers to answer. Yet, as thinking humans we've become trained to deal with that question nearly every context. So well drilled that we consider something for which that question has no answer to be suspicious if not insidious.
Richard Dawkins is one of the most interesting popular science writers working today, and usually his books are filled with insight and perception about evolution (and other topics), written in clear and effective prose. This book is different from most of Dawkins's books, as it targets biologists rather than laypeople, and so it is a much more frustrating and difficult reading for such readers.Frankly, if you are, like me, a lay person, don't read this book before reading other books by Dawkins, most notably The Selfish Gene, but also other stuff by him. I doubt I would have understood this book had it been my introduction to Dawkins's ideas. The glossary, though helpful, is far from complete and rarely detailed enough.
But for all this, The Extended Phenotype is richer in observations and ideas then any other book by Dawkins I have ever read. Dawkins says this is his best book, and you can see that he has a point.
The book has three main themes. The first is discussion of left over issues from The Selfish Gene, answering criticism and elaborating on the ideas in that book. The second is clarifying some issues in discussion of evolution, such as replicators and vehicles, fitness, etc. The third one, and the one for which Dawkins is most proud is his 'Extended Phenotype' - the concept that genes operate on the enviornment, and that the body (the individual organism) is a link in the chain of orders passing from DNA to the external phenotype - beaver dams or host behaviour that helps the parasite, or any other activity that helps the genes.
Frankly, the concept of the extended phenotype is best explained in the chapter about 'The Long reach of the gene' in the new (1989) edition of 'The Selfish Gene'.
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