A philosopher called 'the selfish gene' a careless metaphor that escaped the lab

In a scathing 1979 review, Mary Midgley accused Richard Dawkins of smuggling human motives into genetics, since genes can't literally be 'selfish' any more than atoms can be ambitious. The clash became one of modern philosophy's sharpest public spats over a scientific metaphor.

— Mary Midgley, Gene-Juggling — Philosophy, Vol. 54, No. 210, 1979