George C. Williams.
Natural Selection: domains, levels, and challenges.
OUP. 1992
In this work, George C. Williams—one of evolutionary biology’s
most distinguished scholars—examines the mechanism and meaning
of natural selection in evolution.
Williams offers his own perspective on modern evolutionary theory,
including discussions of the gene as the unit of selection,
clade selection and macroevolution, diversity within and among populations,
stasis, and other timely and provocative topics.
In dealing with the levels-of-selection controversy,
he urges a pervasive form of the replicator-vehicle distinction.
Natural selection, he argues, takes place in the separate domains
of information and matter. Levels-of-selection questions, consequently,
require different theoretical devices depending on the domain being discussed.
In addressing these topics, Williams presents his synthesis of
three decades of research and creative thought
which have contributed greatly to evolutionary biology in this century.
