The Evolution of Cooperation insects, where the workers – which are sterile, and therefore incapable of passing on their genes – benefit the queen, who is essentially passing on copies of "their" genes. This is further elaborated in the "selfish gene" theory of Richard Dawkins, that the unit of evolution is not the individual organism, but the gene. (As stated by Wilson: "the organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA.") However, kinship selection works only where the individuals involved are closely related; it fails to explain the presence of altruism and cooperation between unrelated individuals, particularly across species. In a 1971 paper
Beyond Natural Selection Beyond Natural Selection Beyond Natural Selection is a 1991 book by Robert G. Wesson, published by MIT Press. Wesson argues for the case of pluralism in biology. He suggests alternative mechanisms of evolution rather than natural selection. Wesson argues that reductionism is inadequate and looks for chaos theory as an example of a different approach that is needed to explain evolution. The book provides unsolved problems that Wesson believed natural selection could not account for. The paleontologist Joseph G. Carter in a critical review for the "American Scientist" wrote the book "includes innumerable oversimplifications and misrepresentations of both evolutionary theory