Works
- The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, 1976
- Universal Darwinism, in Evolution from Molecules to Men, edited by D. S. Bendall (Cambridge University Press), 1983
In Thinking Tools
Known for
An evolutionary biologist known for the gene's-eye view of natural selection. In The Selfish Gene he coined the word meme for a unit of cultural transmission and compared replicators by their longevity, fecundity, and copying fidelity; in Universal Darwinism he argued that Darwinian selection is the only known process able to produce adapted complexity, wherever life arises.
Caveat: Memetics has not become an established science; critics question whether ideas replicate with the stability and discreteness the gene analogy needs.