The Selfish Gene

From EvoWiki

The Selfish gene by Richard Dawkins is a popular science book about Evolution. The book argues that selection must be seen as acting on genes (gene selection) rather than individuals or groups, and debunks the idea that individuals act "for the good of the species".

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As a young ethologist, Dawkins wrote this book in response to other ethologists, exemplified by V.C. Wynne-Edwards, who too eagerly resorted to using group selection as an explanation for altruism that could not be easily explained by individual selection, this approach being known as evolution for the "good of the group or species" rather than the individual. His key idea was not to argue for individual selection but instead for gene selection or the "good of the gene", a concept specifically worked out by George C. Williams but also implied in the work of William D. Hamilton's inclusive fitness concept - popularised as kin selection by John Maynard Smith, Maynard Smith's own evolutionary game theory, Robert Trivers' reciprocal altruism and, in the second edition of the book, extensions of evolutionary game theory united with reciprocal altruism by Robert M. Axelrod, Roy A. Rappaport and others. Dawkins collects all these techniques together to argue that all biologists should understand natural selection as actually operating on genes rather than as, traditionally thought, individual organisms, which Dawkins calls vehicles. The inference is that group selection is an invalid tool and all cases of biological altruism could be explained instead by gene selection, that is vehicles' altruism benefits selfish genes and so is not evolutionarily problematic, or indeed altruism, after all.

That book has been controversial because of a misunderstanding of the purpose of the book. Some who read the book (and others who have managed to draw conclusions from the title) believe Dawkins was advocating a way of life based on being selfish, rather than stating his version of natural selection and actually avoiding the naturalistic fallacy (what's natural is good!). Others believed that Dawkins was proposing genetic determinism.

[edit] ISBN

First Edition, 1976. Oxford University Press:
- Hardcover: ISBN 019857519X.
- Paperback: ISBN 0586083162.
Second Edition, 1989. Oxford University Press:
- Hardcover: ISBN 0192177737.
- Paperback: ISBN 0192860925.