Viruses of the Mind Viruses of the Mind "Viruses of the Mind" is an essay by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, first published in the book "Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind" (1993). Dawkins originally wrote the essay in 1991 and delivered it as a Voltaire Lecture on 6 November 1992 at the Conway Hall Humanist Centre. The essay discusses how religion can be viewed as a meme, an idea previously expressed by Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" (1976). Dawkins analyzes the propagation of religious ideas and behaviors as a memetic virus, analogous to how biological and computer viruses spread. The essay was later
Group Selection (book) Group Selection (book) Group Selection is a 1971 book edited by George C. Williams, containing papers written by biologists arguing against the view of group selection as a major force in evolution. The group of biologists writing on a single unified (if somewhat broad) theme contrasts with Williams' earlier seminal 1966 book "Adaptation and Natural Selection", whose arguments Williams suspected to be his alone. In particular it contains a reprint, with an erratum, of W.D. Hamilton's classic 1964 paper on inclusive fitness, "The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior" plus a paper by John Maynard Smith entitled "The Origin and Maintenance