1.5.2Dawkins’ “Selfish Gene” Theory and Gene Replication
...the fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is
not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene,
the unit of heredity.
—RICHARD DAWKINS
E. O. Wilson pointed out decades ago that evolution is really all about gene preservation and
gene replication. This “gene’s-eye view” of natural and sexual selection is usually referred to
as “selfish gene” theory, after the book, The Selfish Gene, by the British zoologist,
Richard Dawkins. Selfish gene theory has become the dominant framework used in explaining
adaptations and adaptive behaviour in evolutionary biology and psychology.
“Selfish gene” metaphorically explains how genes become successful by behaving in a pitiless,
“selfish” way. Of course genes don’t “think” and “act”—they’re blind, deaf, mute chemicals that
build living organisms. If the organism dies before the gene it hosts successfully replicates,
the gene fails. If the organism lives long enough to replicate, then the gene it hosts succeeds
in continuing on to another generation. Genes, then—not bodies—are the actual units of
biological selection and replication. The individuals that genes construct (plants, animals,
bacteria, etc.) serve only as vehicles to pass on genes.
