The gene-centered view of evolution, gene's eye view, gene selection theory, or selfish gene theory holds that adaptive evolution occurs through the differential survival of competing genes, increasing the allele frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic trait effects successfully promote their own propagation. The proponents of this viewpoint argue that, since heritable information is passed from generation to generation almost exclusively by DNA, natural selection and evolution are best considered from the perspective of genes.

Proponents of the gene-centered viewpoint argue that it permits understanding of diverse phenomena such as altruism and intragenomic conflict that are otherwise difficult to explain from an organism-centered viewpoint. Some proponents claim that the gene-centered view is the aspect of evolutionary theory that is the most empirically validated, has the greatest predictive power, and has the broadest applicability.

The gene-centered view of evolution is a synthesis of the theory of evolution by natural selection, the particulate inheritance theory, and the rejection of transmission of acquired characters. It states that those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation will be favorably selected relative to their competitor alleles within the population. This process produces adaptations for the benefit of alleles that promote the reproductive success of the organism, or of other organisms containing the same allele (kin altruism and green-beard effects), or even its own propagation relative to the other genes within the same organism (selfish genes and intragenomic conflict).

Opponents of the gene-centered view argue that it is too narrowly focused on adaptation as the only important mechanism of evolution. Thus, it ignores the possibility that traits might be neutral and fixed by random genetic drift. It also ignores the possibility that some fixed traits might even be deleterious. Critics argue that proponents of the gene-centered view often favor an adaptationist perspective that assumes a role for natural selection as the null hypothesis.

The gene-centered view of evolution is a model for the evolution of social characteristics such as selfishness and altruism, with gene defined as "not just one single physical bit of DNA [but] all replicas of a particular bit of DNA distributed throughout the world".^[verify]

The formulation of the central dogma of molecular biology was summarized by Maynard Smith:

If the central dogma is true, and if it is also true that nucleic acids are the only means whereby information is transmitted between generations, this has crucial implications for evolution. It would imply that all evolutionary novelty requires changes in nucleic acids, and that these changes – mutations – are essentially accidental and non-adaptive in nature. Changes elsewhere – in the egg cytoplasm, in materials transmitted through the placenta, in the mother's milk – might alter the development of the child, but, unless the changes were in nucleic acids, they would have no long-term evolutionary effects.

— Maynard Smith