The Selfish Gene turns 40

In 1976 Richard Dawkins's study of evolutionary theory became the first popular science bestseller. How do its ideas stand up today?

It's 40 years since Richard Dawkins suggested, in the opening words of The Selfish Gene, that, were an alien to visit Earth, the question it would pose to judge our intellectual maturity was: "Have they discovered evolution yet?" We had, of course, by the grace of Charles Darwin and a century of evolutionary biologists who had been trying to figure out how natural selection actually worked. In 1976, The Selfish Gene became the first real blockbuster popular science book, a poetic mark in the sand to the public and scientists alike: this idea had to enter our thinking, our research and our culture.

Previous attempts to explain evolution had been academic and rooted in maths. Dawkins walked us through it in prose

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