The book is divided into seven sections containing a mixture of pieces of varying lengths covering several themes-- including Darwinism, morality, education, justice, history of science and, of course, religion. Dawkins provides a brief preamble to each of the seven sections while the pieces themselves, selected by Editor Latha Menon, show Dawkins at his captivating best and sometimes his angry, self-righteous side.

Dawkins at his best is peerless as an expositor of the wonders of science, a man for whom science is, as he put it "a source of living joy" and this shines through in many, if not most, of the essays.

He is of course Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and while he denies that scientists have special ethical qualifications he does insist that a proper understanding of our animal heritage ought to change the way we think about ourselves--in particular the way we arbitrarily draw the lin...
A Devil's Chaplain, 2007-12-05
Yet again Dawkins provides us with another book of clear, lucid arguments and great science to leave you awe inspired at the wonder of nature. This is a collection of his various writings and it includes articles, book reviews, eulogies and personal writings. In my opinion it is better than 'The Single Helix' by Steve Jones (that also provides many short scientific articles), as Dawkins is allowed enough space to develop his ideas for you to fully engage with them and appreciate his points. The fact that they are collated from a variety of sources, from over the years, means that the topics are varied and not restricted to x amount of pages per article. Something Steve Jones was unable to achieve in his book. Dawkins argues as keenly as ever and his passion comes across on every page. If you're a fan of Dawkins you won't be disappointed with this book, and if you're new to his work then this isn't a bad place to start.

Once humans learned to imitate each other--that is, receive, copy and retransmit "memes"--the rest, Blackmore argues, is a foregone and somewhat chilling conclusion: we are the product of our memes just as we are the products of our genes, the trouble being that memes, like genes, care only for their own propagation. The ability to imitate each other laid us open to ideas good and bad in equal measure. These proliferated in such numbers that individuals, competing to imitate the best imitators, needed bigger and bigger brains to contain the flood. Now our heads are so big, they are barely birthable.

Blackmore's brilliantly argued version of how humans became conscious--not to say downright troubled--demolishes some of the most intractable problems of human evolution and social biology, with flair. Hers is a book ful...
A terrific book on a 'science' in decline, 2007-10-18
It is a shame that just as usage of the word 'meme' is becoming commonplace, the 'science' of Memetics is falling out of favour. This is largely due to its inability to actually predict anything. For a science to be accepted as such it has to be testable - so it has to be predictive. Memetics (so far) doesn't do that. All it does is offer explanations of things that have already happened, and so many of its enthusiastic early converts have since gone in other directions. This is a shame, because to anyone new to it Memetics does offer the most stunning of explanations and insights.

Anyway, back in 2000, while everyone else dithered, Susan Blackmore nailed her colours to the mast and wrote this brilliant book full of insight and daring conjecture. You might disagree with a lot of what she says - it might even annoy you - but you will find it a fascinating read, and the best book (yet) on the subject.