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
Adaptation and Natural Selection point, e.g. populations don't take any measures to avoid impending extinction. Finally he evaluates various ideas about progress in evolution, denying that selection will bring about the kind of progress that some have suggested. The author concludes that his view on the topic is similar to that of most of his colleagues, but worries that it is misrepresented to the public "when biologists become self-consciously philosophical". Adaptation and Natural Selection Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought is a 1966 book by the American evolutionary biologist George C. Williams. Williams, in what is now considered a