Richard Dawkins, poster boy for the New Atheists, began his writing career with the 1976 release of The Selfish Gene.  Dawkins elaborated on the ideas of George C. Williams’ first book Adaptation and Natural Selection.  Dawkins coined the term selfish gene as a way to express a gene-centered view of evolution; that is that an organism will conduct itself in such a way as to propagate its genetic material into the future. For Dawkins, this drive trumps all others. Everything in evolution can be explained, Dawkins contends, that provides an advantage for an organism’s genes to be passed on to future generations. It all boils down to DNA, to chemical alignments. There is no right, no wrong. It’s all pure biological determinism.

Hold on. In coining the term, "selfish gene" Dawkins . . .

does not intend (as he states unequivocally in the work) to imply that [genes] are driven by any motives or will merely that their effects can be accurately described as if they do. The contention is that the genes that get passed on are the ones whose consequences serve their own implicit interests. [1]

In Dawkins attempt to describe evolution in purely naturalistic terms, where will and intent are a fiction, he ends up attributing them to genes.

In Dawkins world, filled as it is with "selfish genes", there’s no such thing as love or charity; there’s no compassion or nobility. Virtue of any kind is for Richard Dawkins and his New Atheist compatriots nothing but the product of our selfish genes; in other words, complex chemical reactions - reactions which WANT to be continued on in perpetuity.

When New Atheists are challenged with real-life stories of those who sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others with "competing" genetics, they hem and haw and quickly move the conversation to a different field. A gene-based view of evolution has no explanation for genuine altruism or for that matter any of the noblest virtues.

The selfish-gene theory of evolution is a great example of what we read in Romans 1:22, "Proclaiming themselves wise, they became fools," for in denying genuine morality and will to individuals, they attribute it to DNA.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene#cite_note-0

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