From: utzoo!decvax!cca!mclure@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: A Chicken/Egg problem - (nf)
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.2700
Posted: Sun Aug 15 00:54:48 1982
Received: Fri Aug 20 05:09:28 1982

#R:mi-cec:-12500:sri-unix:1300001:000:497
sri-unix!mclure    Aug 15 00:47:00 1982

Dawkins' THE SELFISH GENE has been discredited and should be read as
science fiction (as he actually mentions in the foreward).  The idea
that genes can exist for specific traits, as Dawkins implies, is
anathema to most biologists.  Much of Dawkins' speculations rest on
this idea.

However, I felt the book was valuable in one respect: his emotionally
overwhelming description of the origin of life.  Excerpts of these
passages were reprinted in Hofstadter and Dennett's THE MIND'S EYE.

	Stuart