I Owe Eric Olson a Very Humble Apology

I owe Eric Olson a very humble apology, and admission for doing exactly what I accused him of doing in SciAm -- and I want to apologize to SciAm just as equally.

I finally watched the video Olson included in his post.  Far from denigrating Dawkins or showing unfamiliarity with its contents, it is exactly the other way around:  the video followed Dawkins' idea almost to the word and Dawkins essentially could have written them himself.

That said, everything I said below I retract in complete humility.


Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase "the selfish gene" with his best-selling book of the same name. "Selfish", however, was an unfortunate word choice because genes lack a will and can actually drive altruism. SA editor Eric Olson explains.

David Strumfels' Comments:

Eric Olson -- how many times does it have to be said,  "Next time read a book before you criticize it."  Dawkins has repeatedly explained over the decades exactly what he means by the selfish gene, and he has made it clear over and over and over again -- as if even a high school biology student even needs it explained -- that of course genes don't have wills or are selfish in the human sense. It's pure analogy: genes "act" as though they had selfish wills, and if you use that analogy prudently you will understand a great more about them, as Dawkins has over those decades (and helped me as well) and you clearly haven't.

Shame on Scientific American for printing this ancient rubbish; but then, you haven't been a real science magazine for some years now.  Maybe if you hired some real science journalists and stopped trying to be a combo of real journal and dumbed-down pop sci magazine, you would regain your old respect.

Oh, and the portrait of Dawkins with a rather goofy grin -- that was just coincidence of course.  Hunt around enough photos and of course you will find a few.  Scientific value of a person's photo?  Clearly none whatsoever; it's just there for prejudicial purposes.  I won't even reproduce it.

I know Dawkins and others have posted more serious rebuttals than mine, so I'll stop here and  "go out and dig in the garden, or something."