The Selfish Gene Another criticism of the book is its treatment of morality, and more particularly altruism, as existing only as a form of selfishness: The philosopher Mary Midgley has suggested this position is a variant of Hobbes' explanation of altruism as enlightened self-interest, and that Dawkins goes a step further to suggest that our genetic programming can be overcome by what amounts to an extreme version of free will. Part of Mary Midgley's concern is that Richard Dawkins' account of "The Selfish Gene" serves as a moral and ideological justification for selfishness to be adopted by modern human societies as simply following
The Evolution of Beauty preeminent. Prum proceeds to apply the principle of aesthetic evolution as an independent force in human evolution. Prum indicates that Darwin recognizing difficulties in the theory of natural selection advanced the view that sexual selection is an additional force in evolution and presented this argument in "The Descent of Man". Alfred Russel Wallace, St. George Mivart and other early evolutionists helped to elevate natural selection as the only force in evolution and delegated sexual selection to a subsidiary role. It was argued that sexual selection was based on recognition of markers of survival fitness, so that, for instance in birds,