Yes, but then most everyone promptly forgets that, and he doesn't help. Also, I think the original copy had less of that qualification. I read an old copy. Also, I don't think he would have won the Pulitzer if he didn't take that approach. No. You have a bad gene that is expelled from the system, because it can't replicate itself. Yes. ...Well actually, because nothing bad happened to the organism when it happened not to be copied. But I'm just pointing out the absurdity of picking the gene as a byte of evolutionary strategy. There is no strategy (well, at least according to Darwinian evolution). It looks like strategy, but it's not. Scientists aren't as easily confused by these distinctions, but many are. As an aside, I think we are getting clues that Lamarck was accidentally partly correct. EDIT: Actually, I should say that it might make some sense to call a gene a 'byte of evolutionary strategy' if you imagine a strategy, but Dawkins is instead calling it a 'function'.