Concept

Gene-centered view of evolution

Overview

The gene-centered view of evolution, also known as the selfish gene theory, holds that adaptive evolution occurs through the differential survival of competing genes, increasing the allele frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic trait effects successfully promote their own propagation. The proponents of this viewpoint argue that, since heritable information is passed from generation to generation almost exclusively by DNA, natural selection and evolution are best considered from the perspective of genes.

Proponents of the gene-centered viewpoint argue that it permits understanding of diverse phenomena such as altruism and intragenomic conflict that are otherwise difficult to explain from an organism-centered viewpoint. Some proponents claim that the gene-centered view is the aspect of evolutionary theory that is the most empirically validated, has the greatest predictive power, and has the broadest applicability.

The gene-centered view of evolution is a synthesis of the theory of evolution by natural selection, the particulate inheritance theory, and the rejection of transmission of acquired characters. It states that those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation will be favorably selected relative to their competitor alleles within the population. This process produces adaptations for the benefit of alleles that promote the reproductive success of the organism, or of other organisms containing the same allele (kin altruism and green-beard effects), or even its own propagation relative to the other genes within the same organism (selfish genes and intragenomic conflict).

Opponents of the gene-centered view argue that it is too narrowly focused on adaptation as the only important mechanism of evolution. Thus, it ignores the possibility that traits might be neutral and fixed by random genetic drift. It also ignores the possibility that some fixed traits might even be deleterious. Critics argue that proponents of the gene-centered view often favor an adaptationist perspective that assumes a role for natural selection as the null hypothesis.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

But as all groups cannot thus go on increasing in size, for the world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less dominant. This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the inevitable contingency of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of life in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great classes, which has…
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
States what Gene-centered view of evolution is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, why should that part of the structure, which differs from the same part in other independently-created species of the same genus, be more variable than those parts which are closely alike in the several species? I do not see that any explanation can be given. But on the view of species being only strongly marked and fixed varieties, we might…
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection
States what Gene-centered view of evolution is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
In "The Factors of Organic Evolution," by way of enforcing this argument, which had, so far as I know, never been met, I dwelt upon the aberrant structure of the giraffe. And then, in the essay which initiated this controversy, I brought forward yet a third case--that of an animal which, previously accustomed only to walking, acquires the power of leaping.
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Volume 1
Close in meaning to Gene-centered view of evolution; the term itself is not named.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Meaning of life.

Explore Gene-centered view of evolution in the interactive graph →