Richard Dawkins is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and a well-known popularizer of science. In 1976, his book "The Selfish Gene" was published, which brought the author worldwide recognition. The media often call him "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fervent advocacy of the theory of natural selection. Dawkins is one of the hundred most brilliant people living on the planet today.The Selfish Gene is the first and at the same time remarkable book by Richard Dawkins, which still remains his most famous work and even after 40 years intrigues and does not lose its relevance. "We are survival machines - self-propelled robots blindly programmed to preserve selfish molecules known as genes," the author declares.What is the "selfishness" of genes? Why does the scientist speak so ruthlessly about people? What views does he advocate? Richard Dawkins insists that it is the gene, not the individual, that is the unit of natural selection. Unexpected, isn't it? But that's not all. The author explains altruism not by subconscious efforts to preserve the species, but by the selfishness of genes: they resort to the most profitable strategy in order to leave a piece of themselves in eternity.Moreover, Dawkins is the one who first introduced the concept of "meme", which is an analogue of a gene in a living organism, but not at the level of biology, but at the level of culture. And if we are sure that only by leaving offspring, we will continue ourselves in eternity, then Dawkins claims that this is not the case at all: after several generations, there will be no trace of our genes, but the memes created by us will truly exist forever.