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
Natural selection 1900. With the early 20th century integration of evolution with Mendel's laws of inheritance, the so-called modern synthesis, scientists generally came to accept natural selection. The synthesis grew from advances in different fields. Ronald Fisher developed the required mathematical language and wrote "The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection" (1930). J. B. S. Haldane introduced the concept of the "cost" of natural selection. Sewall Wright elucidated the nature of selection and adaptation. In his book "Genetics and the Origin of Species" (1937), Theodosius Dobzhansky established the idea that mutation, once seen as a rival to selection, actually supplied the raw material