Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an evolutionary biologist and a Wenner-Gren Fellow at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University, Sweden. My research focuses on the biology of genetic conflicts and what they can tell us about the evolution of conflict and cooperation more generally. I develop population genetic theory and perform comparative analyses to ask how and why such conflicts occur and how they fit into models of social evolution. I also work on the foundations of the so-called gene’s-eye view of evolution, also known as selfish gene theory. I studied at Edinburgh and Toronto and was a postdoc at Cornell and Harvard.


I wrote

The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution

By J. Arvid Ågren,

Book cover of The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution

What is my book about?

Few phrases in biology have caught the imagination of professionals and laypeople alike the way Richard Dawkins's ‘selfish gene’ has…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene

J. Arvid Ågren Why did I love this book?

When I read Richard Dawkins’s The Extended Phenotype I knew I wanted to become an evolutionary biologist. The book is the most ambitious articulation of the gene’s-eye view (a work of ‘unabashed advocacy’, as Dawkins put it). Less famous that The Selfish Gene, it also includes responses to the criticisms that The Selfish Gene received, which also made debates in theoretical biology seem so exciting. In many ways, that excitement has never left me. 

By Richard Dawkins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Extended Phenotype as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins crystallized the gene's eye view of evolution developed by W.D. Hamilton and others. The book provoked widespread and heated debate. Written in part as a response, The Extended Phenotype gave a deeper clarification of the central concept of the gene as the unit of selection; but it did much more besides. In it, Dawkins extended the gene's eye view to argue that the genes that sit within an organism have an
influence that reaches out beyond the visible traits in that body - the phenotype - to the wider environment, which can include other…


Book cover of The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today

J. Arvid Ågren Why did I love this book?

The gene’s-eye view of evolution emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Arguing that biologists are better off thinking about evolution in terms of genes rather than organisms was controversial, but still quickly gained popularity. An important reason for this was that it helped make sense of old, long-standing problems in the field. Two of those were sexual selection (how extravagant traits like the peacocks tail can evolve) and altruism (like the sterile worker ant devoting its life to the queen). In The Ant and the Peacock, Helena Cronin shows how the gene’s-eye view provides a powerful way to solve these puzzles. 

By Helena Cronin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ant and the Peacock as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book is a success story. It explains two long-running puzzles of the theory of natural selection. How can natural selection favour those, like the ant, that renounce tooth and claw in favour of the public-spirited ways of the commune? How can it explain the peacock's tail, flamboyant and a burden to its bearer; surely selection would act against useless ornamentation? Helena Cronin's enthralling account blends history, science and philosophy in a gripping tale that is scholarly, entertaining and eminently readable. The hardback edition was selected by Nature as one of the best scientific books in 1992. Also the New…


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Book cover of Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and Other New Ways of Engaging the World

Diary of a Citizen Scientist By Sharman Apt Russell,

Citizen Scientist begins with this extraordinary statement by the Keeper of Entomology at the London Museum of Natural History, “Study any obscure insect for a week and you will then know more than anyone else on the planet.”

As the author chases the obscure Western red-bellied tiger beetle across New…

Book cover of Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate

J. Arvid Ågren Why did I love this book?

The theory of evolution touches us in a way other scientific theories do not. It deals directly with who we are and where we come from. But how exactly? The Selfish Gene came out only a year after E.O. Wilson’s Socbiology and both books helped ignite an ill-tempered debate over this question. Ullica Segerstråle's book is a comprehensive history of this particularly intense disagreement and is full of personal anecdotes and insights from all the major players. 

By Ullica. Segerstrale,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Defenders of the Truth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For the last twenty-five years, sociobiologists have come under continuous attack by a group of left-wing academics, who have accused the former of dubious and politically dangerous science. Many have taken the critics' charges at face value. But have the critics been right? And what are their own motivations? This book strives to set the record straight. It shows that the criticism has typically been unfair. Still, it cannot be dismissed as 'purely politically motivated'. It turns out that the critics and the sociobiologists live in different worlds of taken-for-granted scientific and moral convictions. The conflict over sociobiology is best…


Book cover of Evolution and the Levels of Selection

J. Arvid Ågren Why did I love this book?

I did my PhD in biology, but one of the books that affected my thinking the most was written by a philosopher: Samir Okasha’s Evolution and the Levels of Selection. I came to biology not through a love of natural history, but through a fascination with the logic of evolution by natural selection. The debate over the gene’s-eye fitted perfectly into this and it led me into the huge literature in the philosophy of biology that deals with the so-called levels of selection debate – does natural selection act on genes, individuals, or groups? Okasha’s book is a great demonstration of how philosophy can help science. 

By Samir Okasha,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Evolution and the Levels of Selection as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Does natural selection act primarily on individual organisms, on groups, on genes, or on whole species? Samir Okasha provides a comprehensive analysis of the debate in evolutionary biology over the levels of selection, focusing on conceptual, philosophical and foundational questions. A systematic framework is developed for thinking about natural selection acting at multiple levels of the biological hierarchy; the framework is then used to help resolve outstanding
issues. Considerable attention is paid to the concept of causality as it relates to the levels of selection, in particular the idea that natural selection at one hierarchical level can have effects that…


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Book cover of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

What Walks This Way By Sharman Apt Russell,

Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…

Book cover of Genes in Conflict: The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements

J. Arvid Ågren Why did I love this book?

The biggest strength of the gene’s-eye view is that it helps us make sense of things that seem impossible to understand from the perspective of individual organisms. One example is selfish genetic elements. These are genes that in one way or another have hijacked the system by which genes are replicated and passed on to the next generation. This ability allow them to spread in a population, even if they are harmful to the organism that carries them. I was given Burt and Trivers's book as an undergraduate by the professor who would later become my PhD advisor. That was over ten years ago, but every time I pick up this book I am reminded of how awestruck I was. Selfish genetic elements and genetic conflicts are a weird and wonderful world and Genes in Conflict is the best guide there is.  

By Austin Burt, Robert Trivers,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Genes in Conflict as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In evolution, most genes survive and spread within populations because they increase the ability of their hosts (or their close relatives) to survive and reproduce. But some genes spread in spite of being harmful to the host organism-by distorting their own transmission to the next generation, or by changing how the host behaves toward relatives. As a consequence, different genes in a single organism can have diametrically opposed interests and adaptations. Covering all species from yeast to humans, Genes in Conflict is the first book to tell the story of selfish genetic elements, those continually appearing stretches of DNA that…


Explore my book 😀

The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution

By J. Arvid Ågren,

Book cover of The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution

What is my book about?

Few phrases in biology have caught the imagination of professionals and laypeople alike the way Richard Dawkins's ‘selfish gene’ has done, and it changed how both groups thought about evolution. The debate over the value of taking a gene’s-eye view of evolution has raged for over half a century and it pitted 20th-century Darwinian heavyweights such as John Maynard Smith and W.D. Hamilton against Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould in the pages of Nature as well as those of The New York Review of Books. My book is about that debate and I explore the origins and developments of the gene's-eye view: what it is, where it came from, how it changed, and why it still evokes such strong emotions. 

Book cover of The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene
Book cover of The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today
Book cover of Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate

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