The Selfish Gene

In The Selfish Gene, originally published in 1976, author and renowned British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins expands upon American biologist George C. Williams’s 1966 critique Adaptation and Natural Selection. In his text, Dawkins describes the molecular gene as the fundamental unit of evolution. Through the study of animal behavior, he explores numerous examples of natural selection. Like Williams, Dawkins shares a gene-centric view of evolution.

Dawkins also extends Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by investigating the progression of individual genes. Evolution applies to organisms and their genes, and either view could have equal validity. However, viewing evolution through the perspective of the gene opens new possibilities. Since Darwin, biologists into the 20th century gradually developed the genetic perspective of evolution. However, Dawkins makes it more explicit, to place it at the core of evolutionary biology.

According to Dawkins, genes developed as self-replicating molecules in Earth’s oceans. Among numerous molecules, these replicators rapidly copied their way to predominance. Due to competition over limited resources in their environment, replicators built increasingly complex machines to protect themselves. These machines now take the forms of plants and animals, including humans.

The machines, at the individual or group levels (such as a single organism or an entire species), contain large collections of replicators.