To many, The Selfish Gene makes reality into a nihilistic dystopia in the vein of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, where we can be reduced to have about as much freedom as a teaspoon has in deciding whether to stir a cup of tea. Dawkins flips our everyday experience and intuition on its head: “ We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes” (Dawkins 1976, p. Since the books original publication in 1976, the gene-centric account of evolutionary theory has caused considerable controversy. Are we really in control of our own actions or are we just the ‘puppets’ of our selfish genes? Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene has just celebrated forty years since its first publication with the release of a new and expanded edition that pays homage to the gene’s eye view of evolution. There has always been something sinister about the gene’s eye view of evolution.
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