The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary Edition (Oxford Landmark Science)

Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.

Why are there miles and miles of "unused" DNA within each of our bodies? Why should a bee give up its own chance to reproduce to help raise her sisters and brothers? With a prophet's clarity, Dawkins told us the answers from the perspective of molecules competing for limited space and resources to produce more of their own kind. Drawing fascinating examples from every field of biology, he paved the way for a serious re-evaluation of evolution. He also introduced the concept of self-reproducing ideas, or memes, which (seemingly) use humans exclusively for their propagation. If we are puppets, he says, at least we can try to understand our strings. --Rob Lightner

• The God Delusion
• The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design
• The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
• Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create
• Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind
• The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
• Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind
• Managing Oneself (Harvard Business Review Classics)
• The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Oxford Landmark Science)
• The H Factor of Personality: Why Some People are Manipulative, Self-Entitled, Materialistic, and Exploitive?And Why It Matters for Everyone