Reaction: Selfish Genes to Social Beings

meika loofs samorzewski

Silvertown, Jonathan. Selfish Genes to Social Beings: A Cooperative History of Life. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2024. [https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198876397.001.0001]

Good introductory text by Jonathan Silvertown to the science and history dealing with the idea of co-operation in our biological lives. Give it to your friends who need a break from Dostoevsky or Nietzsche.

We have the usual suspects:

  • Part 1: Kropotkin, pirates, mole rats, J.B.S. Haldane’s relatives computing or equivalence, bison lives.

  • Part 2: individuals, Erasmus Darwin, Lynn Margulis, odd couples like lichen, mycorrhizal interconnections in the soil, and domestication.

  • Part 3: cell into multicellular evolution and an excellent glossary.

I did not notice anything particularly revelatory, and reacted nearly naught.

Crossposted at substack.com with the to-do list of evolution~morality here.