The Selfish Gene
E212234
The Selfish Gene is a landmark 1976 book by Richard Dawkins that popularized a gene-centered view of evolution and introduced concepts like memes to a broad audience.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Selfish Gene canonical | 28 |
| selfish gene | 2 |
| Oxford University Press edition of The Selfish Gene | 1 |
| The Selfish Gene (1976 first edition) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1908409 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Selfish Gene Context triple: [Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, relatedTo, The Selfish Gene]
-
A.
The Third Chimpanzee
The Third Chimpanzee is a popular science book by Jared Diamond that explores human evolution and behavior by comparing Homo sapiens to our closest primate relatives.
-
B.
What Evolution Is
What Evolution Is is a comprehensive book by evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr that explains the mechanisms, evidence, and implications of biological evolution for a general audience.
-
C.
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis is a landmark 1975 book by biologist Edward O. Wilson that founded the modern field of sociobiology by applying evolutionary theory to the study of social behavior in animals and humans.
-
D.
The Language of Life
The Language of Life is a popular science book by geneticist Francis Collins that explains how advances in genomics are transforming medicine and personal health.
-
E.
Essays of a Biologist
Essays of a Biologist is a collection of influential essays by evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley that explores biology’s implications for human society, philosophy, and the modern worldview.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Selfish Gene Target entity description: The Selfish Gene is a landmark 1976 book by Richard Dawkins that popularized a gene-centered view of evolution and introduced concepts like memes to a broad audience.
-
A.
The Third Chimpanzee
The Third Chimpanzee is a popular science book by Jared Diamond that explores human evolution and behavior by comparing Homo sapiens to our closest primate relatives.
-
B.
What Evolution Is
What Evolution Is is a comprehensive book by evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr that explains the mechanisms, evidence, and implications of biological evolution for a general audience.
-
C.
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis is a landmark 1975 book by biologist Edward O. Wilson that founded the modern field of sociobiology by applying evolutionary theory to the study of social behavior in animals and humans.
-
D.
The Language of Life
The Language of Life is a popular science book by geneticist Francis Collins that explains how advances in genomics are transforming medicine and personal health.
-
E.
Essays of a Biologist
Essays of a Biologist is a collection of influential essays by evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley that explores biology’s implications for human society, philosophy, and the modern worldview.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
non-fiction book ⓘ popular science book ⓘ |
| author | Richard Dawkins ⓘ |
| centralThesis |
altruistic behavior can be explained by gene-level selection
ⓘ
natural selection acts primarily at the level of genes ⓘ organisms are vehicles for gene replication ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| followedBy | The Extended Phenotype ⓘ |
| genre | science ⓘ |
| hasChapter |
Aggression: Stability and the Selfish Machine
ⓘ
Battle of the Generations ⓘ Immortal Coils ⓘ Nice Guys Finish First ⓘ The Gene Machine ⓘ The Long Reach of the Gene ⓘ The Replicators ⓘ You Scratch My Back, I’ll Ride on Yours ⓘ |
| hasEdition |
30th anniversary edition
ⓘ
first edition ⓘ second edition ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 978-0-19-857519-1 ⓘ |
| influenced |
cultural evolution studies
ⓘ
debates on sociobiology ⓘ evolutionary psychology ⓘ memetics as a field ⓘ public understanding of evolution ⓘ |
| introducedTerm |
meme
ⓘ
memetics ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| notableConcept |
evolutionarily stable strategy
ⓘ
extended phenotype ⓘ inclusive fitness ⓘ kin selection ⓘ meme ⓘ replicator ⓘ selfish gene ⓘ
linked to:
The Selfish Gene
vehicle ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1976 ⓘ |
| publisher | Oxford University Press ⓘ |
| subject |
altruism
ⓘ
evolution ⓘ evolutionary biology ⓘ gene-centered view of evolution ⓘ memetics ⓘ natural selection ⓘ selfishness ⓘ sociobiology ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Selfish Gene Description of subject: The Selfish Gene is a landmark 1976 book by Richard Dawkins that popularized a gene-centered view of evolution and introduced concepts like memes to a broad audience.
Referenced by (32)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: The Selfish Gene
subject linked to:
The Theory of Evolution
subject linked to:
Adaptation and Natural Selection (1966)
subject linked to:
“The evolution of reciprocal altruism”
The Long Reach of the Gene
→
publicationContext
→
Oxford University Press edition of The Selfish Gene
ⓘ
linked to: The Selfish Gene
linked to: The Selfish Gene
linked to: The Selfish Gene