selfish gene

A theory created by W.D.Hamilton and populised by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene which postulates that the basic unit of selection in nature is not the species, or organism, but the individual genes in an organism, and that any action in nature, however altruistic it may be, is in fact done to spread the genes that caused it.

This is usually stated in contrast to whole organism and species selection, both of which leave unexplained phenomena. The selfish gene theory can explain such problems as altruism and social insects, something the other theories find very hard to do.

Of course this completely ignores other factors like attachments made through lifetime (friendship, marriage), cultural norms and social pressures, morality, etc. I still think it's interesting and a useful model, especially in studying social insects. No naturalist, the above included, believes this model alone can explain human behavior.