Evolution must be selfish

By thinking about evolution as purely the process through which individuals can outperform their peers, it follows that it must be a selfish process[@dawkins2016The selfish gene: 40th anniversary edition, Chapter 1]. The definition of egoistic or altruistic in this context are all those actions that prolong the individual life even if at the expense of the species survival, or the opposite. This is because evolution acts at an individual level and therefore there is, in principle, no positive pressure for traits that benefit the species over the individual.