Gene-centered view of evolution
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
The gene-centered view of evolution, gene selection theory or selfish gene theory holds that natural selection acts through differential survival of competing genes, increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation. According to this theory, adaptations are the phenotypic effects through which genes achieve their propagation. The 1976 book The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins was a notable early work of popular science that focused on the gene-centered view of evolution.
Introduction
The gene-centered view of evolution is a different way of looking at the basis of evolutionary development. It turns the whole solution of evolution inside-out for the purpose of examination. What this new perspective reveals is a more easily understood model for the evolution of social characteristics such as racism, deceit and kindness that much of the study of evolution, caught up in the survival of the fittest individual organisms, overlooks. Moreover, it eases the transition to the evolutionary modeling of other mediums such as the development of new technologies and the changes in Wikipedia pages, because it describes evolution in terms of the evolution of specific features as opposed to just in terms of the features’ vehicles.
See also
- Evolutionary biology
- Meditatio compositionis generationis futuræ e qua iterum pendent innumeræ generationes in The Metaphysics of Sexual Love by Schopenhauer