The selfish gene is one of the few books if you read it with an enquiring mind it will change you forever. I first read it 30 years ago now (amazing how time flies) and it still affects the way I see the world.
To elaborate... prior to reading TSG, I thought of myself as an atheist, but I held open a (very) small amount of willingness to consider the idea of some sort of creator, mainly because I'd not heard a convincing counter to the "irreducible complexity" idea. After reading TSG, I felt convinced that there is a reasonable way for, say, the eye, optic nerve, etc., to evolve, that doesn't require the entire thing to appear at once.
Once I crossed that hurdle, I felt a lot more confident in publicly declaring myself an "atheist" instead of just saying "agnostic" which always felt like something of a weasel term.
Of course, having grown up in the "Bible Belt" and having many family members who are devout Christians, this led to some interesting, erm, "discussions" over the years.
I also appreciated TSG for introducing me to things like the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma and the works of Robert Axelrod, Robert Trivers, etc. and ideas like "kin altruism", "reciprocal altruism", etc. A lot of things make more sense after reading that book.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Daw...
I'm still perplexed by those who saw it as an argument for selfishness. I watched a TV interview of Dawkins about 10 years back where one of the interviewer's first questions was along these lines. It must be so frustrating for him.
Dawkins says he regrets the title, but perhaps the perceived controversy also helped its fame.
I read Edward O. Wilsons' "On Human Nature" the year it was published (1978)...I just happened to stumble upon it in a bookstore...a wonderful read which prompted me to wonder,"What other thinkers are out there that I don't know about?"
This was two years after Dawkins published "The Selfish Gene"...I was unaware of the book, or Dawkins in general, for at least a decade...when I discovered it I devoured it...
It had the effect of further cementing the philosophy of living my previous inquiries had led me to...
I've discovered no benefit to putting a label on myself, whether that be atheist, agnostic, or theist...early on I discovered others held tightly to their views and were usually very unlikely to change them...discussions were interesting and invigorating, but ultimately fruitless...
What I most appreciate about the efforts of Dawkins and Wilson is that they are quite serious thinkers...they encourage us to "go with the best available evidence"...there's no better advice...
There's ample evidence that we humans are finite beings, and IMHO we don't much like the idea of that, i.e., we want answers as to why we exist at all...and we're often unwilling to embrace "the best available evidence"...
Further, I think that those who cannot accept that we appear to be finite beings misunderstand the concept of "infinity"...it extends backwards, forwards, in any direction our human linguistic invention of the concept of "time" might include...infinity implies limitless possibilities...
I'll continue to proceed with my life based on what "the best available evidence" suggests...if new and compelling evidence is uncovered I'm willing to turn on a dime...
To take a memorable quote from the book:
"We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes."
It's not technically accurate. Genes are not selfish - they are inanimate chemicals and they don't do programming. Dawkins is obviously being poetic but you could write less bleak poetry.
Some Feynman for comparison:
"It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man [...] It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing — atoms with curiosity — that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders."
Jollier and doesn't resort to anthropomorphising molecules.