History of evolutionary thought theory were particularly controversial, spawning the neutralist-selectionist debate over the relative importance of mutation, drift and selection, which continued into the 1980s without a clear resolution. In the mid-1960s, George C. Williams strongly critiqued explanations of adaptations worded in terms of "survival of the species" (group selection arguments). Such explanations were largely replaced by a gene-centered view of evolution, epitomized by the kin selection arguments of W. D. Hamilton, George R. Price and John Maynard Smith. This viewpoint would be summarized and popularized in the influential 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. Models of the period seemed to
The Evolution of God of God. Among other things, Wright discusses the role of evolutionary biology in the development of religion. Geneticist Dean Hamer hypothesized that some people have a specific gene that makes them prone to religious belief, which he calls the God gene, and that over time natural selection has favored these people because their spirituality leads to optimism. Wright, however, thinks the tendency towards religious belief is not an adaptive trait influenced by natural selection, but rather a spandrel - a trait that happens to be supported by adaptations originally selected for other purposes. Wright states that the human brain approaches