In a 2006 interview with Meet the Author, the year when The Selfish Gene celebrated its 30th anniversary, Richard Dawkins had this to say:
“…If I had to write it again, I wouldn’t write it very differently. It has been described as a revolutionary book, in one respect it is. But it’s only a revolutionary way in looking at orthodox Darwinian natural selection. It helps to look at it in this revolutionary way. It could equally well have been called “the Altruistic Animal,” because if you have selfish genes, which only means that natural selection works at the level of the gene; if you have selfish genes, then you may have altruistic individuals. And that’s what the book is about.”
What Dawkins describes as “revolutionary,” others have construed as controversial. When The Selfish Gene was first published in 1976, it created a number of waves within the study evolutionary biology, largely dominated by Darwinian doctrine. (One could say it made a splash in the gene pool.) If Darwin’s idea of natural selection was based on the concept of “survival of the fittest,” then why does altruism exist between individuals? Why aren’t all living things selfish in a cut-throat battle for survival? Dawkins strove to explain altruism in The Selfish Gene, with the argument that altruistic behavior can be explained through the selfishness of our genes. How people misinterpreted this however, was essentially that we are all born selfish–that our selfish genes give way to selfish behavior in individuals, and through this scientific reasoning, legitimizes it. Dawkins argues that individuals are selfish machines, programmed to do what’s best for our genes. But what is best for our genes, isn’t necessarily the best for the individual carrying the genes. In the example of a beehive, a bee will sting any threat to the hive, at the cost of its own life. Clearly this isn’t what’s best for the individual bee. However, it is what’s best for its genes because the bee works to save many more individuals who share the same genes. In sacrificing itself to protect a hive full of its genes, the bee behaves altruistically as an individual, but is still selfish at the gene level. In the introduction to the 30th anniversary edition, Dawkins addresses the misunderstandings and criticisms generated since its first publication:
“The Selfish Gene has been criticized for anthropomorphic personification and this too needs an explanation, if not an apology. I employ two levels of personification: of genes, and of organisms. Personification of genes really ought not to be a problem, because no sane person thinks DNA molecules have conscious personalities, and no sensible reader would impute such a delusion to an author.” (x)
Well, that’s quite an apology.
While Dawkins wasn’t the first person to suggest genes as the units upon which natural selection acts, the The Selfish Gene was the first to present gene-centric evolutionary biology in a very accessible way. Over one million copies of The Selfish Gene have been sold since its first publication, with a second edition published in 1989, and a thirtieth anniversary edition in 2006. The Selfish Gene also has been translated into over twenty languages. Its relevance over three decades has all but diminished through its influence over evolutionary biology, but also, in popular culture. Ever wonder how the word “meme” came about? This guy, in this book.