自然选择的单位

达尔文名著，1859年出版的《物種起源》，试图对物种转变，对生物多样性，进行科学解释，并归结为经过长时间自然选择过程中的演化。

近来的学说却更流行“自然选择是个体间的优化选择”，而不是直接的物种选择。

Richard Dawkins:

“......natural selection will tend to make individual animals good at those things. But there is no reason to expect natuaral selection to make species good at avoiding extinction, good at balncing their sex ratio, good at limiting their population in the interests of the common weal, good at husbanding their food supply and conserving their environment for the benefit of futire generations. That would be panglossism.
......Group survival is not what natiral selection is about.”

自然选择是一个正确的定义，即它是“自然的”选择，而不是“意识的”选择。

如果说，altruism 已经超出了自然选择的范围，因为它违背了自然选择的最小单位，基因，的对于环境变化的反应，那么，我们可以看到最原始的‘意识’在对自然结构的‘反作用’。