Modern synthesis (20th century) a gene-centred view of evolution following Hamilton's concepts, disputing the idea of evolutionary progress, and attacking the then widespread theory of group selection. Williams argued that natural selection worked by changing the frequency of alleles, and could not work at the level of groups. Gene-centred evolution was popularised by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" and developed in his more technical writings. In 1975, E. O. Wilson published his controversial book "", the subtitle alluding to the modern synthesis as he attempted to bring the study of animal society into the evolutionary fold. This appeared radically new,
Gene-centered view of evolution that it is his own vision that genes play a causal role in evolution," while Gould (and Eldredge) "sees genes as passive recorders of what worked better than what". Gene-centered view of evolution The gene-centered view of evolution, gene's eye view, gene selection theory, or 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, with gene defined as "not just one single physical bit of DNA [but] all replicas of a particular bit of DNA distributed throughout the