The Selfish Gene

About The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene (1976) introduced the gene's-eye view of evolution — the argument that the fundamental unit of natural selection is the gene, not the organism or the species — and coined the concept of the 'meme' as the cultural analogue of the gene. It is the most influential popular science book in the history of evolutionary biology and remains controversial and widely debated nearly five decades after publication.