Gene-centered view of evolution Richard Dawkins and George C. Williams, other biologists and philosophers have expanded and refined the selfish-gene theory, such as John Maynard Smith, George R. Price, Robert Trivers, David Haig, Helena Cronin, David Hull, Philip Kitcher, and Daniel C. Dennett. The gene-centric view has been opposed by Ernst Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould, David Sloan Wilson, and philosopher Elliott Sober. An alternative, multilevel selection (MLS), has been advocated by E. O. Wilson, David Sloan Wilson, Sober, Richard E. Michod, and Samir Okasha. Writing in the "New York Review of Books", Gould has characterized the gene-centered perspective as confusing book-keeping with causality. Gould
Selfish genetic element successful selfish genetic elements. The discovery of transposable elements led to her being awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1983. The empirical study of selfish genetic elements benefited greatly from the emergence of the so-called gene-centred view of evolution in the nineteen sixties and seventies. In contrast with Darwin's original formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection that focused on individual organisms, the gene's-eye view takes the gene to be the central unit of selection in evolution. It conceives evolution by natural selection as a process involving two separate entities: replicators (entities that produce faithful