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, 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