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
Evolution of the eye of their owners. They vary in their visual acuity, the range of wavelengths they can detect, their sensitivity in low light, their ability to detect motion or to resolve objects, and whether they can discriminate colours. In 1802, philosopher William Paley called it a miracle of "design". Charles Darwin himself wrote in his "Origin of Species", that the evolution of the eye by natural selection seemed at first glance "absurd in the highest possible degree". However, he went on that despite the difficulty in imagining it, its evolution was perfectly feasible: ...if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye