Group selection accustomed to group selection thinking that he did not realize his views "contravened orthodox Darwinian theory". The ethologist Niko Tinbergen praised Lorenz for his interest in the survival value of behavior, and naturalists enjoyed Lorenz's writings for the same reason. In 1962, group selection was used as a popular explanation for adaptation by the zoologist V. C. Wynne-Edwards. In 1976, Richard Dawkins wrote a well-known book on the importance of evolution at the level of the gene or the individual, "The Selfish Gene". From the mid 1960s, evolutionary biologists argued that natural selection acted primarily at the level of the
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