Are there accessible lay-person "popular science" type books that contradict Dawkins and are highly regarded? My very limited understanding of evolutionary biology mostly comes from reading Dawkins books, which were highly enjoyable. And the concepts seem pretty solid and playing around with my own toy throwaway simulations, don't seem implausible. I also understood that other math had backed up the general points of Dawkins.
If this isn't the case, what's the recommended pop-sci reading to help make me less wrong on all this?
I took a general biology course given by Wilson, plus an ecology course for which it was a prerequisite, but that is the extent of my knowledge in this field. Both of those were a long time ago. I don't know enough to make such a recommendation.
However, if you don't mind a general comment, this whole "controversy" has an element of "angels dancing on the head of a pin" to it. It is still the case that evolutionary biology falls somewhat short of many other sciences with respect to empirical rigor. Many of the concepts that the field presents (e.g. "ring species", "punctuated equilibrium", etc.) are primarily narrative or even ad hoc. Sociobiology particularly suffers this condition, and evolutionary psychology was basically written by Rudyard Kipling. My impression is that Wilson has made some progress past that (I'm thinking of his island experiments), but evolutionary biology is stuck in the Age of Philosophy. The field hasn't really had its Copernicus yet, let alone its Newton. I say that not to denigrate the entire effort, but to put this particular argument into context.
As any grad student will tell you, however, we must value parsimony, and on its face this paper seems to have that over kin selection.
If this isn't the case, what's the recommended pop-sci reading to help make me less wrong on all this?