History of evolutionary thought theory were particularly controversial, spawning the neutralist-selectionist debate over the relative importance of mutation, drift and selection, which continued into the 1980s without a clear resolution. In the mid-1960s, George C. Williams strongly critiqued explanations of adaptations worded in terms of "survival of the species" (group selection arguments). Such explanations were largely replaced by a gene-centered view of evolution, epitomized by the kin selection arguments of W. D. Hamilton, George R. Price and John Maynard Smith. This viewpoint would be summarized and popularized in the influential 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. Models of the period seemed to
The Selfish Gene a work of exposition." According to comparative psychologist Nicky Hayes, "Dawkins presented a version of sociobiology that rested heavily on metaphors drawn from animal behavior, and extrapolated these...One of the weaknesses of the sociological approach is that it tends only to seek confirmatory examples from among the huge diversity of animal behavior. Dawkins did not deviate from this tradition." More generally, critics argue that "The Selfish Gene" oversimplifies the relationship between genes and the organism. (As an example, see Thompson.) "The Selfish Gene" further popularised sociobiology in Japan after its translation in 1980. With the addition of Dawkins's book to