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Richard Dawkins
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The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Oxford Landmark Science) Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition

by Richard Dawkins (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 out of 5 stars 288 ratings
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins crystallized the gene's eye view of evolution developed by W.D. Hamilton and others. The book provoked widespread and heated debate. Written in part as a response, The Extended Phenotype gave a deeper clarification of the central concept of the gene as the unit of selection; but it did much more besides. In it, Dawkins extended the gene's eye view to argue that the genes that sit within an organism have an influence that reaches out beyond the visible traits in that body - the phenotype - to the wider environment, which can include other individuals. So, for instance, the genes of the beaver drive it to gather twigs to produce the substantial physical structure of a dam; and the genes of the cuckoo chick produce effects that manipulate the behaviour of the host bird, making it nurture the intruder as one of its own. This notion of the extended phenotype has proved to be highly influential in the way we understand evolution and the natural world. It represents a key scientific contribution to evolutionary biology, and it continues to play an important role in research in the life sciences.

The Extended Phenotype is a conceptually deep book that forms important reading for biologists and students. But Dawkins' clear exposition is accessible to all who are prepared to put in a little effort.

Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.
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  1. ISBN-13
    978-0191024337
  2. Edition
    Reprint
  3. Publisher
    OUP Oxford
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    March 4, 1999
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    1.3 MB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard Dawkins is the first holder of Oxford's newly endowed Charles Simonyi Professorship of Public Understanding of Science. Born in Nairobi of British parents, Richard Dawkins was educated at Oxford and did his doctorate under the Nobel-prizewinning ethologist Niko Tinbergen. From 196769 he was an Assistant Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, then he returned to Oxford as University Lecturer (later Reader) and a Fellow of New College, before taking up his present position in 1995.

Richard Dawkins's bestselling books have played a significant role in the renaissance of science book publishing for a general audience. The Selfish Gene (1976; second edition 1989) was followed by The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), and Unweaving the Rainbow (1998). He has won many literary and scientific awards.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00GPONW1E
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ OUP Oxford
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 4, 1999
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1.3 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 325 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0191024337
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 288 ratings

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Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins taught zoology at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oxford University and is now the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position he has held since 1995. Among his previous books are The Ancestor's Tale, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, and A Devil's Chaplain. Dawkins lives in Oxford with his wife, the actress and artist Lalla Ward.

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4.5 out of 5 stars
288 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find this book to be well worth persevering with, with good scholarly writing and informative content, particularly appreciated by professional geneticists. The book receives positive feedback for its pacing, with one customer noting how it stretches one's perspective. However, customers find it difficult to read.

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Value for moneyInformation qualityPacingReadability
28 customers mention "Value for money"24 positive4 negative

Customers find the book to be worth the wait and consider it one of Richard Dawkins' best scholarly works, with one customer describing it as the most mind-blowing book they've read.

"...The argument of the book was very skillfully crafted...." Read more

"...Then he spends 78 cool pages in play, and this is worth the wait...." Read more

"That's quite impressive, it even somewhat changed my way of looking at the world surrounding me...." Read more

"...Watchmaker or Selfish Gene, but at the same time it's a more /interesting/ read." Read more

26 customers mention "Information quality"22 positive4 negative

Customers find the book informative, particularly praising its content for professional geneticists, with one customer noting it is written to provide massive amounts of biological information.

"...This is a biologist having a conversation with other biologists...." Read more

"...to time, rereading either the whole or part, will give geneticists and general biologists, not to mention those hoping to move behavioral and..." Read more

"...Focus of the book, at least as i'm getting it, is that the phenotypic effects of genes (selected by evolution), when regarded as a "phenotype"..." Read more

"...The story it tells is full of detail and complextiy itself, and it occurs at a scale of magnitude and a time frame and, ultimately, from a..." Read more

3 customers mention "Pacing"3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the pacing of the book, with one noting how it stretches their perspective.

"...it stretches one's perspective how exactly that plays out...." Read more

"Major ideas: germ-line active replica, differential selection, extended phenotype, single-cell bottleneck, common exit...." Read more

"Very extended..." Read more

8 customers mention "Readability"0 positive8 negative

Customers find the book difficult to read, with one noting that the writing style is less conversational.

"A synthesis of Dawkins' scientific thought. IT might be difficult reading for many, but the issues he brought up are vital to our understanding of..." Read more

"...but it also means the writing style is a little less conversational...." Read more

"...This book was a bit hard to read since I am not a professional biologist. But I spent a lot of time reading it and contemplating every page...." Read more

"...to Dawkin's most famous "Selfish Gene" this book is much more difficult to read for a non-biologist person...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Quai Chang Cain
    5.0 out of 5 stars Selfish Gene, Part 2
    Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2014
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    The first 10 chapters are really focused on developing the ideas found in the Selfish Gene and overcoming objections to them. This is a biologist having a conversation with other biologists. I don't mean to discourage anyone from giving it a go (I thought it was well worth the effort), but unlike everything else I've read from Dawkins, in this volume he is quite content to talk about ideas that have never been introduced. So if you're an outsider to this debate, be prepared to spend a little time on Wikipedia getting up to speed, and I'd recommend reading The Selfish Gene first.

    After drilling into the 'selfish gene' in greater detail that the eponymous work, the next three chapters do a fantastic job of advocating the view that the effects of genes (their phenotype) are not limited to body parts (blue eyes, brown hair, etc.) but extend out to aspects of animal behavior, animal artifacts and even, in the case of a beaver making a dam that makes a lake, the surrounding environment. We can talk about genes 'for' a beaver lake. He uses well-chosen examples to illustrate how thinking outside the individual organism is conceptually no different than tracing the (actually very complex) chain of events that lead from a single gene to something like blue vs. brown eyes.

    The argument of the book was very skillfully crafted. Every one of the ten chapters rehashing and developing the Selfish Gene ended up providing intellectual scaffolding for making the jump outside the body in the later chapters, even if it wasn't obvious that the information would be necessary while reading it. There was almost a sense of a well-constructed trap snapping shut in the final chapters. Dawkins also has a delightful habit of starting a 'thought experiment' that seems utterly bizarre just to get a point across, and right when you think he's pushed the experiment too far, he trots out a real example from nature that is even more wonderful and strange than his thought experiment was. Brilliant work!

    Having in a sense finished what he started in the Selfish Gene, developing a gene's-eye view of the world, Dawkins ends The Extended Phenotype with a chapter that contemplates the place and importance of the individual organism.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • PembrokeSorbonne
    4.0 out of 5 stars Dawkin's Favourite work, a must read sequel to The Selfish Gene
    Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2023
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This work is the sequel to Dawkins first book, The Selfish Gene, which further develops the idea of evolution by gene replication. It is also his own favourite work which he wrote for his fellow evolutionary biologists. This second book is also more technical but if you read the first work, it is not difficult to follow it though this one introduces more technical terms. The main topic of the book actually begins in chapter 11 through 13. It is possible to just read the three chapters for getting the thesis Dawkins develops if you are in a hurry.

    Chapter 2 to 3 address criticisms of The Selfish Gene. The most common objection to it was the issue of genetic determinism. Dawkins' rejoinder is genetic effects are of two kinds, manufacturing copies of themselves and  influencing phenotypes. The former is inflexible but the latter is highly flexible. So Dawkins holds phenotypes  that are genetically  resulted are flexible by how the organism manages them.

    From chapter 4 on, Dawkins discuss key concepts that are instrumental in phenotypic effects.  A most important one is the notion of "manipulation". Manipulation is the interaction of one organism towards another organism. Later in the book, it is explained that phenotypic effects are just results of manipulation. He even suggests communication is a kind of manipulation to coordinate relationship. Another related notion is "arms race". This pertains to how organisms evolve in adaptive advantages against each other. To respond to selection pressure successfully, an "active germ line replicator" is the most effective because it is active, I.e., possess influence on its probability of being copied  and a "germ line replicator" a replicator from a long line of successive replicates.  An interesting kind of gene to note is an "outlaw", a gene that promotes its own survival at the expense of the survival of the whole genome.  An outlaw affects the result of an arms race. Against the background of an "outlaw", there is also a "modifier", a gene whose phenotypic effects are the result of modifying  the effects of other Genes.  Dawkins also discusses the 5 technical notions of "fitness" which he finds not very helpful for understanding the natural selection process.

    In developing his notion of extended phenotype, Dawkins first suggested that phenotypes can range beyond an organism's body to its environment. It is acceptable to biologists at the time of his writing in considering genetic control of morphology and the genetic control of behaviour. If there is no issue in considering genetic inheritance of the brain, there should not be issue to accept genetic inheritance of behaviour. Further artefacts produced by the behaviour would in the same way be extended phenotypes of the organisms as in the phenotypes within the body of an organism. Hence, having green eyes or tails of certain shape are phenotypes as much as beaver dams and caddisfly houses.

    Then Dawkins considers the phenotypes of parasites. Flukes infecting snail shells have the phenotypic effects of replication which can also have further phenotypic effects of strengthening the snail shells. Parasites on host may have phenotypic effects  that may not benefit themselves but inadvertently benefit the host.
    Parasites' genes respond to selection pressure to replicate and benefit themselves, but collateral effects on the host are unpredictable.
    Dawkins goes further to introduce extended phenotypes called "action at a distance" aka Bruce effects. This is the idea of extended phenotypic effects of one organism on another that is not parasitic in nature. An example is how a mouse impregnated by one mouse having the pregnancy blocked chemically by another male mouse. Dawkins suggest that such phenotypic effects can be harmonious or not from different organisms depending on the manner of the genes of each reacting to the selection pressure.

    This sequel to The Selfish Gene covers more theoretical grounds beyond it and expands the readers  horizon further of the genetic process of evolution.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Kuma
    5.0 out of 5 stars A great very accessible book on evolution
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2008
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    I read this one after the 30th anniversary of The Selfish Gene, and though Dawkins states in his intro that he regards this as his best work, I personally prefer the slightly expanded Selfish Gene which takes into account his extended phenotype theory. I guess one further point on this is that there is a lot of repetition between the material in the two works too! He also states that this is aimed at his academic colleagues rather than as a book for the layman but I found the science to be pretty straightforward and commonsense and only needed to check the glossary at the back for about half a dozen words. However, other than those points its pretty much faultless and the plot will keep you gripped to the bitter denoument... I'm certainly looking forward to the sequel!
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  • Tomek
    5.0 out of 5 stars Eines der wichtigsten Evolutionsbiologischen Bücher überhaupt
    Reviewed in Germany on March 18, 2017
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Klar verständlich, logisch und dennoch überraschend - Es gibt kaum jemanden der Wissenschaft so prägnant und nachvollziehbar darstellen kann wie Richard Dawkins.
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  • Albert Godts
    5.0 out of 5 stars A lire par tout intéressé à notre passé biologique
    Reviewed in France on November 9, 2015
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Une oeuvre fantatique de vulgarisation au sens noble du terme: accessible à tous mais sans simplification outrancière. Une nouvelle vue du Darwinisme basée sur les toutes dernières connaissances en biologie. Un détail négatif: loin de moi l'idée de m'opposer à l'athéisme de qui que ce soit mais il est inutile d'en entrelacer parfois la trame à l'explication scientifique: il n'y a pas de relation entre Foi en Dieu ou en NonDieu d'une part et la relation de recherches et découvertes scientifiques, d'autre part. Même si cetains Christianismes le font tout autant que l'auteur.
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  • Dom
    5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the general public! But great science book!
    Reviewed in Canada on November 2, 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This book is not for the general public, especially the first 10 chapters. It get very technical sometime, even for a molecular biology student like me. So the first 10 chapters are more of a response to the critics of Dawkins first book (Selfish Gene), adresse to proffessional biologist. The real meat of the book is located in the last chapters, where example and definitions of extended phenotypes are given. Overall this will contribute greatly to your understanding of evolution (mainly the last part of the book), might even come handy in a biology exam, but I prefered the Selfish Gene. I understand why this is the book Dawkins is more proud of, because in this one he really develop an idea of his own (while the selfish gene was more of a compilation of different point of view)
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  • Antonio Morbidoni
    5.0 out of 5 stars CONSIGLIATISSIMO
    Reviewed in Italy on April 8, 2014
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Libro fantastico.
    Un'opportunità unica di vedere le cose da un punto di vista diverso e non convenzionale.
    Consegna nei tempi previsti.
    Peccato soltanto non esista un'edizione italiana.
    Report

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