Adaptation and Natural Selection

Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought is a 1966 book by the American evolutionary biologist George C. Williams. Williams, in what is now considered a classic by evolutionary biologists, outlines a gene-centric view of evolution,^{[citation needed]} disputes notions of evolutionary progress, and criticized contemporary models of group selection, including the theories of Alfred Emerson, A. H. Sturtevant, and to a smaller extent, the work of V. C. Wynne-Edwards. The book takes its title from a lecture by George Gaylord Simpson in January 1947 at the University of Princeton. Aspects of Williams' book were popularised by Richard Dawkins' in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene.

Contents

• Preface

1. Introduction 3
2. Natural Selection, Adaptation, and Progress 20
3. Natural Selection, Ecology and Morphogenesis 56
4. Group Selection 92
5. Adaptations of the Genetic System 125
6. Reproductive Physiology and Behavior 158
7. Social Adaptations 193
8. Other Supposedly Group-Related Adaptations 221
9. The Scientific Study of Adaptation 251

• Literature Cited 275
• Index 291

References

• 1996 edition ISBN 0-691-02615-7