Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

Not at all. In a certain sense, the frozen plasticity theory means a return to the Darwinian theory based on individual selection from the current mainstream theory which is based on intralocus competition of alleles (the selfish gene theory). The current theory of adaptive evolution (which silently replaced Darwin’s theory in the past thirty years) suggests that the new adaptive trait evolves because it helps to increase the number of copies of the allele that is responsible for the transmission of this particular trait to future generations. The frozen evolution theory suggests that both this mechanism and the old Darwinian mechanism, which is based on competition for higher fitness of an individual, can be responsible for the origin of an adaptive trait. However, the frozen plasticity theory suggests that both these mechanisms can operate only in the plastic phase of existence of a species.