📚 2 Books mentioned in "137. Richard Dawkins on God, Genes, and Murderous Baby Cuckoos | People I (Mostly) Admire" of People I (Mostly) Admire
Podcast: People I (Mostly) Admire
Episode: 137. Richard Dawkins on God, Genes, and Murderous Baby Cuckoos | People I (Mostly) Admire
Published on August 5, 2024
Here’s a list of all the books mentioned in this episode. Click on the links to watch specific excerpts on YouTube and feel free to purchase the books if they caught your interest!
The God Delusion
Buy The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins on Amazon
Richard Dawkins is both a distinguished scholar of zoology and evolutionary biology and a remarkably successful popularizer of scientific ideas through his bestselling books, including The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.
Steve Levitt introduces Richard Dawkins and highlights his book 'The God Delusion' as one of his bestselling works during the introduction of episode 137.
This is, in some sense, leading to talking to you about the reactions you've gotten when you've argued against religion in books like The God Delusion.
In this segment, host Steve Levitt mentions the book 'The God Delusion' to transition into a discussion about the reactions that Richard Dawkins has received for his arguments against religion.
It seems, as one reads The God Delusion or your other books and writings on the topic, it's really difficult or even impossible to argue with you.
In this segment, podcast host Steve Levitt discusses 'The God Delusion', emphasizing its role in presenting Richard Dawkins' compelling arguments against religion.
The Selfish Gene
Buy The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins on Amazon
Richard Dawkins is both a distinguished scholar of zoology and evolutionary biology and a remarkably successful popularizer of scientific ideas through his bestselling books, including The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.
In this episode, host Steve Levitt introduces Richard Dawkins, highlighting his bestselling book 'The Selfish Gene' among his significant contributions to popular science.
In 2017, the Royal Society, the United Kingdom's Academy of Sciences, conducted a public poll asking readers to name the most influential science book of all time. The winner was The Selfish Gene.
In this episode, podcast host Steve Levitt references a 2017 public poll by the Royal Society, which asked readers to choose the most influential science book. 'The Selfish Gene' was declared the winner.
I have to start with a confession: before last week, I'd never read your book, The Selfish Gene. I have now, and I was quite shocked at how eye-opening the book was for me.
In this episode, podcast host Steve Levitt admits that he had never read 'The Selfish Gene' before recording but found it surprisingly eye-opening after doing so. This confessional moment sets the tone for the discussion with Richard Dawkins.
One of the most striking chapters in The Selfish Gene is chapter 11 on memes, and I've often heard people say, 'Oh, Richard Dawkins created the term meme,' but I always honestly thought of memes as being somewhat trivial because now they're very much associated with internet fads.
In this segment, podcast host Steve Levitt discusses a notable chapter about 'memes' in the book 'The Selfish Gene'. He highlights the common misconception that Richard Dawkins coined the term meme, while reflecting on how the concept has evolved and is now often linked to internet trends.
In the concluding chapter of the first edition of The Selfish Gene, I cast around for another example of a replicator. I wasn't then aware of computer viruses; otherwise, I might have chosen the computer virus as my analogy.
Richard Dawkins discusses replicators in his concluding chapter of the first edition of 'The Selfish Gene', where he elaborates on various examples, including the concept of a computer virus, which he was not aware of at the time.
About the same time you were writing The Selfish Gene, Gary Becker was writing a book on the economics of the family, and a lot of the same trade-offs are in place.
In the podcast episode, host Steve Levitt discusses how, around the time Richard Dawkins was writing 'The Selfish Gene', Gary Becker was also writing about similar economic concepts regarding family dynamics.
So you talk in The Selfish Gene about the quantity of children and the trade-off between more offspring and higher investment and so better outcomes per child.
In this segment, Steve Levitt discusses 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins while addressing the trade-offs between the number of offspring and the level of investment in each child, highlighting insights from the book.