Gene-centered view of evolution Richard Dawkins and George C. Williams, other biologists and philosophers have expanded and refined the selfish-gene theory, such as John Maynard Smith, George R. Price, Robert Trivers, David Haig, Helena Cronin, David Hull, Philip Kitcher, and Daniel C. Dennett. The gene-centric view has been opposed by Ernst Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould, David Sloan Wilson, and philosopher Elliott Sober. An alternative, multilevel selection (MLS), has been advocated by E. O. Wilson, David Sloan Wilson, Sober, Richard E. Michod, and Samir Okasha. Writing in the "New York Review of Books", Gould has characterized the gene-centered perspective as confusing book-keeping with causality. Gould
The Selfish Gene gene is the object of selection, usefully completes and extends the explanation of evolution given by Charles Darwin before the basic mechanisms of genetics were understood. According to the ethologist Alan Grafen, acceptance of adaptionist theories is hampered by a lack of a mathematical unifying theory and a belief that anything in words alone must be suspect. According to Grafen, these difficulties along with an initial conflict with population genetics models at the time of its introduction "explains why within biology the considerable scientific contributions it ["The Selfish Gene"] makes are seriously underestimated, and why it is viewed mainly as