Mary Midgley offers a critique of the way that Darwin and theory of evolution has been used as an explanation for human interactions – showing that Darwin himself would not have recognised, and would have been very unlikely to put his name to, the “social-Darwinism” or “neo-Darwinism” of Dawkins and others.
Midgley was able to provide me with fresh understanding about the theory of evolution, particularly that “survival of the fitness” is not really evidenced in terms of competition or conflict within species – it is not actually a dog eat dog world (it is a wolf eat lamb world but that is a very different thing…).
This matters because the credibility of much of what Dawkins wants us to believe rests on he linking it to the accolade of Darwin “the scientist”. Take that away and it may not be fatal to Dawkins-ism but it needs to find a new set of foundations.
The other thing that Midgley shows is the concept of the “selfish gene” is flawed, and actually even Dawkins has occasionally expressed regret about that being the characterisation of his theory. The selfish gene was coined as a term at a point when genes were seen as a the answer to everything. We have moved on, genes are now know not to be as deterministic as first thought, and also genes are not the smallest building blocks. Just as at one point atoms were seen as the answer, and now our thinking is all about sub-atomic particles, so interest is pasting towards those things that make up genes. But “neo-Darwinism” has got stuck on genes as the defining feature.
This is a slim volume, a work of “popular” science, not an academic tomb, and so I am sure there are plenty of simplifications that others would pull apart. And just as Midgley critiques Dawkins for killing straw-men of his own making, I am sure Dawkins would defend himself by saying Midgley has attacked not him but a straw-man caricature of him.
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