lew@ihuxr.UUCP (07/19/83)
If it's any comfort to Laura Creighton, I am one who has read "The Selfish Gene" and liked it. (I posted something about it about a year ago.) I have Dawkins' new book, "The Extended Phenotype", which I have started reading. Dawkins' position is fairly hard-nosed but it seems quite straight-forward to me. His controversiality seems to stem from what others perceive to be the moral and political implications of his views. I also just acquired "Human Diversity" by Richard Lewontin. In the introduction he makes some condescending remark about the naivete of Dawkins. He seems mostly driven to discredit any notion of genetic differences in intelligence. He constantly harps on being wary of oversimplifying etc. but he never makes any positive statements (This is Lewontin.) Lewontin has an article in the recent (in years) Sept Sci Am on Evolution which has a similar tone. In that one he is warning of all the interdependencies etc. involved in adaptation, the upshot seeming to be that we might as well give up trying to figure anything out. In "The Extended Phenotype", Dawkins comments that many scientists seem to quail at the real implications of Darwinism, which he sees himself merely reinforcing. I agree with him. I think that Lewontin and Gould just aren't willing to give up the warm good feelings about humanity that they see threatened when Dawkins puts such a fine point on things. I feel content to go merrily on with my life even if I can see myself as a grotesque "lumbering robot" (the phrase Lewontin criticises.) Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew