The particular brilliance of the Dawkins approach is that he sidesteps such questions, and starts to work out how genes might survive to confer just enough advantage to allow their "survival machines" to pass those genes on to a new generation. When he picked up the theme, researchers certainly knew that genes contained the instructions for protein assembly some had found a way – laborious and inaccurate – to "read" a DNA sequence and others had begun attempts to "map" certain genes to particular chromosomes.īut that was about it: nobody knew for sure what a gene was, how many genes there might be, how they did what they did, or how they could affect the behaviour and preferences of an individual, or a species.
To re-read it is to be reminded of what an extraordinary achievement it was.
In the 30th anniversary edition, Dawkins all but apologises for the choice, offering other potential labels for the front cover.
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