7 ms·

Harvard's Edward O. Wilson tries to upend biology, again

84 points by gsivil 15y ago

gruseom 15y ago
We hear a lot about thinking for yourself. Here's an example of someone who does.
xal 15y ago
The remarkable thing about his new theory, group selection is that to an outsider and a lay person, it sounds simpler and a lot more dynamic then the original kin selection theory. This is no crackpot prediction by someone who enjoys causing a ruckus. It very neatly explains related observations such as adhoc gangs/groups which are as common in the animal kingdom as they are with humans. I'll put a calendar reminder in 2 years from now to check back on how this one turned out :-) Thanks for sharing! This is indirectly but wonderfully on topic for this site.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  Are adhoc gangs/groups that perform altruism common across genetic lines? While some animals do exibit adoption, I don't think its nearly as common as altruism towards biological children. And group membership that requires altruism overwhelmingly seems to have genetic tie-in.
  - rcthompson 15y ago
    Well, elephant mothers in a group help protect each others' young from predators by creating an impenetrable elephant wall around them. A single elephant mother could not protect her own young by surrounding them in this way, but she can protect her young by joining the group, if she is also willing to help protect others' young as well. On the other hand, members of a herd are usually genetically related, so it is possible that kin selection can also explain this phenomenon.
    - Alex3917 15y ago
      "On the other hand, members of a herd are usually genetically related, so it is possible that kin selection can also explain this phenomenon." Wilson isn't proposing they are mutually exclusive, he is saying they are both right but to differing degrees.
  - guygurari 15y ago
    In order to have altruistic behavior in a group you need to spread a gene that promotes such behavior within the group. The simplest way for this to happen is for the gene to appear in one member, and then spread to others by inheritance. For this to happen across, say, two genetic lines, it seems you need the "cross-altruistic" genes to emerge more or less simultaneously in the two groups so they can cooperate. The probability for this to happen is smaller, so it's not surprising that it happens less often than kin-style altruism. But if this does happen (and apparently it does), then it means kin selection is not enough to explain altruism. It seems to me that Wilson's theory is an elegant generalization of kin selection. I don't see the contradiction between them, although I'm not a biologist so quite likely I'm misunderstanding something.
    - forkandwait 15y ago
      "In order to have altruistic behavior in a group you need to spread a gene that promotes such behavior..." This premise seems to be taken as fundamental dogma in the evolutionary theory community, but perhaps should be questioned. Here is my (layperson's) counterexample: a species might have a gene that switches between whether an individual is a drone or a reproducer over the course of their life; a switch like that could thrown early in the development based on ambient hormones or whatever. If the individual is not a reproducer, they don't spread their own genes but they help the hive or whatever. I think there is an unexamined assumption guiding contemporary evolution, that ALL behavior must be explained by genes ALONE -- in the case above, lifetime behavior is determined by an environmental trigger, even though the set of possible behaviors is determined by genes. This dogma seems, well, silly and wrong. (Throw in cultural behaviors with outcomes like longer life and more offspring, and the classical system completely falls apart.)
      - guygurari 15y ago
        Certainly not all behavior is the direct result of genes; I don't think this is the common viewpoint. For example there are genes that enable learning. This is extremely useful since disseminating behavior by learning is much faster than doing it through evolution. The rapid changes in human behavior in the last few decades (at least) can be explained in this way, and not by natural selection which is too slow. Genes that encode specific behaviors are just the simplest possible mechanism that works, and they do account for a vast number of phenomena. I think Occam's razor applies: If you suggest a more complicated mechanism, you should have some supporting evidence.
  - da_dude4242 15y ago
    >Are adhoc gangs/groups that perform altruism common across genetic lines? It's common in the sense that symbiotic relationships are common across ecosystems and probably a definitive element of what makes them a "system". Stephen Gould took the idea further in his idea of "hierarchal evolution". Evolution isn't just happening on the genetic, individual, group, and species levels. It's happening at every level of organization.
harscoat 15y ago
I wonder if there is any type of controversy more exciting than this? - Memes and Dawkins are overrated... Btw other very interesting scientists/thinkers on Anthropology, Evolution theory related to humans, are Dan Sperber, Boyd & Richerson "Not by genes alone", Michael Tomasello "why we cooperate"...
rcthompson 15y ago
I'm a biologist, and I never realized that group selection wasn't broadly accepted until I read this article. I'd always assumed it was trivially implied by the theory of natural selection. Natural selection has been observed at every level, from entire organisms all the way down to the subcellular level (transposable elements, mitochondria, and others) I've never doubted that it also operates on populations of organisms. I've often explained aspects of human society to my non-scientist friends in terms of group selection. (Short version: Humans who formed tribes out-competed the loners.) On an unrelated note, I don't see how group selection and kin selection are mutually exclusive.
- mshron 15y ago
  What does it mean to say that natural selection is observed at the level of an organism? I'm not a biologist, but I was under the impression that natural selection on all of the 'levels' of biology all shook out to being natural selection of snippets of DNA.
  - rcthompson 15y ago
    Natural selection at the level of organisms is just the "regular" form of evolution that we are familiar with. I used the word "organism" simply as a contrast to other levels at which natural selection can act. Note that although the DNA is the genetic material, a selective pressure such as the threat of predation acts on organisms. Very rarely would selection act directly on the DNA. Rather, the correlation between carrying a snippet of DNA and not getting eaten causes that snippet to become overrepresented in the population over time.
    - mshron 15y ago
      Got it, thank you. I'd love to see a good pointer to worked out examples of natural selection happening at non-organism levels if you have one handy. It sounds pretty fascinating.
      - rcthompson 15y ago
charlieflowers 15y ago
Does anyone understand enough to tell us what the "math" is all about? According to the article, the math is key to this ... yet they don't give any info at all about what that math says and how it is relevant. If anyone can enlighten us, please do!
- rflrob 15y ago
  It's up behind a paywall (probably... with my university connection I'm never sure what has it and what doesn't) here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/full/nature09205.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/full/nature0... . If anybody is more mathematically sophisticated than I, wants to tackle it, but can't get through the paywall, send me an email (in my profile). Skimming through the supplemental information, it seems like they assume a Markov process where individuals adopt one of two strategies (with a preference towards adopting the strategy that their parent adopted), then look at which one is more likely to be dominant in the population.
  - Dn_Ab 15y ago
    Is this it? http://www.uvm.edu/~cmplxsys/newsevents/pdfs/2010/nowak2010a.pdf http://www.uvm.edu/~cmplxsys/newsevents/pdfs/2010/nowak2010a...
- ignifero 15y ago
  the supplement is open: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/extref/nature09205-s1.pdf http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/extref/natur...
- jonnycat 15y ago
  The math is about the relative costs and benefits of altruistic behaviors. Altruistic behaviors must be a net benefit to an individual or group in terms of reproductive success, or else it would die out of a population. For a business analogy, the behavior needs to turn a profit. In the case of kin selection in particular, the math is described by Hamilton's Rule, an inequality that must be satisfied in order for kin selection to explain a given altruistic interaction between individuals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._Hamilton#Hamilton.27s_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._Hamilton#Hamilton.27s_rul...).
ollysb 15y ago
Did Richard dawkin's "selfish gene" not move us beyond this point in the debate? With the focus on survival of the fittest _genes_ rather than the fittest organisms altruism seems far more logical.
- beefman 15y ago
  The problem is that nobody knows what a "gene" is. It's a pseudoscientific term that implies we know where to find traits (which could be conserved by evolution) in a genome. We don't.
  - ollysb 15y ago
    Regardless of how you define what a "gene" is, the "unit of selection" is a fragment of an organism's dna, not the organism itself. In this context Dawkin's explores an ESS(evolutionary stable strategy) that exhibits altruistic behaviour. It's also worth noting that group selection is shown to be unstable as an evolutionary strategy. This review of The Selfish Gene gives some good background http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/review-the-selfish-gene/ http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/review-the-selfish-gene/.
    - beefman 15y ago
      It's a lot like a binary diff, where phenotype is the source code, natural selection the programmer, and the genome the binary. Natural selection works on the phenotype, and you are saying that at all times the binary diff is compact, or sensible to talk about. Untrue. In fact it's trivially untrue because the genome is too small. Group altruism is stable and is a very strong attractor of population behavior. All that's required is that group members be able to recognize one another. http://people.brynmawr.edu/twong/models/pseudoaltruism.html http://people.brynmawr.edu/twong/models/pseudoaltruism.html Individuals born into such a group may learn this or it may be genetically inherited (instinctual), or both. Of course the distinction between learning and instinct is also a bit fuzzy.
losethos 15y ago
Let's ask God. God says, "revolt planets approbation familiarised unseen wealth heartedness counterfeit together Hosts Far bespotted furnishing disappear Devil replenishing offspring vain utensils entangling whereof what's David stomachs unbounded conceit land astrologers if stream rob undefilable me reconciliation Justina truly funeral men's fingers next sport Fear ceasest refer offerings Doth ."
VladRussian 15y ago
>Yet, strangely, self-sacrifice exists in the natural world, even though it would seem to put individual organisms at an evolutionary disadvantage: The squirrel that lets out a cry to warn of a nearby predator is necessarily putting itself in danger. its obvious - just compare 2 species of squirrels, one which demonstrate behavior described above and another which doesn't. Which species would survive over time better? Without making complicated statistical calculations, the Nature has already calculated the answer - we have the squirrel species of the first kind, and not of the second. It is also obvious why selfishness still exists - because altruistic traits seriously decrease the survivability chances of the individual specimen carrying the traits.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Well no, because selection operates at the level of the individual, not the species. A "defector" mutant squirrel without the instinct to cry out when it sees a predator would have an advantage over the regular squirrel. Some folks have done those complicated statistical calculations, and I believe the current consensus is that group selection is a pretty minimal effect, except in exceptional circumstances. On the other hand, I'm not sure this is a great example. As a big scary potential predator I've scared away many a predator in my time, and y'know what? They don't cry out at all! They just run! Does anyone have experience with screaming squirrels?
  - VladRussian 15y ago
    >Well no, because selection operates at the level of the individual, not the species. A "defector" mutant squirrel without the instinct to cry out when it sees a predator would have an advantage over the regular squirrel. Evolution is a statistical macro process aggregating individual selection events. Thus the "defector" mutant squirrel have higher chances to survive, yet the (sub)species consisting of only such "defector" squirrels will lose to the (sub)species where statistically significant share of specimen demonstrate altruistic behavior. People discussing evolution usually make 2 major mistakes : - assigning explicit "species evolution/survival" level motivation to specific action of specific specimen - directly extrapolating individual specimen events to the level of species, not paying attention to emergent higher-order system behavior >Some folks have done those complicated statistical calculations, such calculations is like law logic - can be bent both ways. Have any idea about chaotic dynamical systems and the effect even small perturbation can cause? >Does anyone have experience with screaming squirrels? if you hike in the SF Bay Area hills, you'll see the high social organization they exhibit, including "watch duty". Edit: for illustration, as somewhat related in principle - recently "Schneier on security" posted http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/status_report_t.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/status_report_... about "dishonest minority" - their individual situation is better, yet the species consisting entirely of the "dishonest minority" type specimen would obviously lose.
Bo102010 15y ago
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection for the prevailing view.
- rcthompson 15y ago
  Thanks for this link. That helped me understand why group selection may be intuitive but is most likely wrong. To summarize, group selection can work mathematically, but you must carefully choose the parameters of the mathematical model in order for "grep-selective" behavior (i.e. altruism toward strangers) to be selected. (These parameters define things like the cost and benefits of altruism to the "giver" and "receiver".) The slightest variation in these parameters results in a collapse of altruism and reversion to selfishness. So while it is theoretically possible, in practice the incentives just don't line up in a way that selects group-selective behaviors over selfish ones.
  - Bo102010 15y ago
    http://lesswrong.com/lw/300/group_selection_update/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/300/group_selection_update/ for a version of the view E. O. Wilson is proclaiming. My guess is that E. O. Wilson is probably right about ants, David Sloan Wilson is probably not right about group selection being like Daniel Dennett's universal acid, and Steven J. Gould was probably wrong in most of what he promoted.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
lisper 15y ago
It is astonishing to me that this discussion has gone on for as long as it has without anyone mentioning the work of Robert Axelrod: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation Axelrod showed that it is not necessary for individuals to share genes in order to cooperate to mutual benefit in an evolutionarily stable strategy.
- Cymric 15y ago
  Note that in the tournaments that Axelrod organize, in order for a cooperate strategy to thrive, there must be a critical mass of other cooperate strategies too. Kin selection, which Edward O. Wilson is attacking, is the current explanation of how this critical mass of cooperative entities come about. If kin selection is wrong then an alternative explanation must be found to explain the appearance of this critical mass of cooperative entities.
  - lisper 15y ago
    Two things: first, kin selection is one possible mechanism by which a critical mass of cooperators can arise, but it is not the only such mechanism. And second, the mechanism that gives rise to cooperation may have evolved for some other reason, with cooperation as an ancillary effect. For example, inter-species cooperation (as between dogs and humans) is almost certainly not a result of kin selection. So even if Wilson is right and the theory of kin selection is flawed (I can't imagine how he could be right, but I haven't read the paper) that is not an indictment of Axelrod.

84 points by gsivil 15y ago

We hear a lot about thinking for yourself. Here's an example of someone who does.

xal 15y ago

The remarkable thing about his new theory, group selection is that to an outsider and a lay person, it sounds simpler and a lot more dynamic then the original kin selection theory. This is no crackpot prediction by someone who enjoys causing a ruckus. It very neatly explains related observations such as adhoc gangs/groups which are as common in the animal kingdom as they are with humans. I'll put a calendar reminder in 2 years from now to check back on how this one turned out :-) Thanks for sharing! This is indirectly but wonderfully on topic for this site.

kenjackson 15y ago
Are adhoc gangs/groups that perform altruism common across genetic lines? While some animals do exibit adoption, I don't think its nearly as common as altruism towards biological children. And group membership that requires altruism overwhelmingly seems to have genetic tie-in.
- rcthompson 15y ago
  Well, elephant mothers in a group help protect each others' young from predators by creating an impenetrable elephant wall around them. A single elephant mother could not protect her own young by surrounding them in this way, but she can protect her young by joining the group, if she is also willing to help protect others' young as well. On the other hand, members of a herd are usually genetically related, so it is possible that kin selection can also explain this phenomenon.
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    "On the other hand, members of a herd are usually genetically related, so it is possible that kin selection can also explain this phenomenon." Wilson isn't proposing they are mutually exclusive, he is saying they are both right but to differing degrees.
- guygurari 15y ago
  In order to have altruistic behavior in a group you need to spread a gene that promotes such behavior within the group. The simplest way for this to happen is for the gene to appear in one member, and then spread to others by inheritance. For this to happen across, say, two genetic lines, it seems you need the "cross-altruistic" genes to emerge more or less simultaneously in the two groups so they can cooperate. The probability for this to happen is smaller, so it's not surprising that it happens less often than kin-style altruism. But if this does happen (and apparently it does), then it means kin selection is not enough to explain altruism. It seems to me that Wilson's theory is an elegant generalization of kin selection. I don't see the contradiction between them, although I'm not a biologist so quite likely I'm misunderstanding something.
  - forkandwait 15y ago
    "In order to have altruistic behavior in a group you need to spread a gene that promotes such behavior..." This premise seems to be taken as fundamental dogma in the evolutionary theory community, but perhaps should be questioned. Here is my (layperson's) counterexample: a species might have a gene that switches between whether an individual is a drone or a reproducer over the course of their life; a switch like that could thrown early in the development based on ambient hormones or whatever. If the individual is not a reproducer, they don't spread their own genes but they help the hive or whatever. I think there is an unexamined assumption guiding contemporary evolution, that ALL behavior must be explained by genes ALONE -- in the case above, lifetime behavior is determined by an environmental trigger, even though the set of possible behaviors is determined by genes. This dogma seems, well, silly and wrong. (Throw in cultural behaviors with outcomes like longer life and more offspring, and the classical system completely falls apart.)
    - guygurari 15y ago
      Certainly not all behavior is the direct result of genes; I don't think this is the common viewpoint. For example there are genes that enable learning. This is extremely useful since disseminating behavior by learning is much faster than doing it through evolution. The rapid changes in human behavior in the last few decades (at least) can be explained in this way, and not by natural selection which is too slow. Genes that encode specific behaviors are just the simplest possible mechanism that works, and they do account for a vast number of phenomena. I think Occam's razor applies: If you suggest a more complicated mechanism, you should have some supporting evidence.
- da_dude4242 15y ago
  >Are adhoc gangs/groups that perform altruism common across genetic lines? It's common in the sense that symbiotic relationships are common across ecosystems and probably a definitive element of what makes them a "system". Stephen Gould took the idea further in his idea of "hierarchal evolution". Evolution isn't just happening on the genetic, individual, group, and species levels. It's happening at every level of organization.

harscoat 15y ago

I wonder if there is any type of controversy more exciting than this? - Memes and Dawkins are overrated... Btw other very interesting scientists/thinkers on Anthropology, Evolution theory related to humans, are Dan Sperber, Boyd & Richerson "Not by genes alone", Michael Tomasello "why we cooperate"...

rcthompson 15y ago

I'm a biologist, and I never realized that group selection wasn't broadly accepted until I read this article. I'd always assumed it was trivially implied by the theory of natural selection. Natural selection has been observed at every level, from entire organisms all the way down to the subcellular level (transposable elements, mitochondria, and others) I've never doubted that it also operates on populations of organisms. I've often explained aspects of human society to my non-scientist friends in terms of group selection. (Short version: Humans who formed tribes out-competed the loners.) On an unrelated note, I don't see how group selection and kin selection are mutually exclusive.

mshron 15y ago
What does it mean to say that natural selection is observed at the level of an organism? I'm not a biologist, but I was under the impression that natural selection on all of the 'levels' of biology all shook out to being natural selection of snippets of DNA.
- rcthompson 15y ago
  Natural selection at the level of organisms is just the "regular" form of evolution that we are familiar with. I used the word "organism" simply as a contrast to other levels at which natural selection can act. Note that although the DNA is the genetic material, a selective pressure such as the threat of predation acts on organisms. Very rarely would selection act directly on the DNA. Rather, the correlation between carrying a snippet of DNA and not getting eaten causes that snippet to become overrepresented in the population over time.
  - mshron 15y ago
    Got it, thank you. I'd love to see a good pointer to worked out examples of natural selection happening at non-organism levels if you have one handy. It sounds pretty fascinating.
    - rcthompson 15y ago

charlieflowers 15y ago

Does anyone understand enough to tell us what the "math" is all about? According to the article, the math is key to this ... yet they don't give any info at all about what that math says and how it is relevant. If anyone can enlighten us, please do!

rflrob 15y ago
It's up behind a paywall (probably... with my university connection I'm never sure what has it and what doesn't) here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/full/nature09205.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/full/nature0... . If anybody is more mathematically sophisticated than I, wants to tackle it, but can't get through the paywall, send me an email (in my profile). Skimming through the supplemental information, it seems like they assume a Markov process where individuals adopt one of two strategies (with a preference towards adopting the strategy that their parent adopted), then look at which one is more likely to be dominant in the population.
- Dn_Ab 15y ago
  Is this it? http://www.uvm.edu/~cmplxsys/newsevents/pdfs/2010/nowak2010a.pdf http://www.uvm.edu/~cmplxsys/newsevents/pdfs/2010/nowak2010a...
ignifero 15y ago
the supplement is open: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/extref/nature09205-s1.pdf http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/extref/natur...
jonnycat 15y ago
The math is about the relative costs and benefits of altruistic behaviors. Altruistic behaviors must be a net benefit to an individual or group in terms of reproductive success, or else it would die out of a population. For a business analogy, the behavior needs to turn a profit. In the case of kin selection in particular, the math is described by Hamilton's Rule, an inequality that must be satisfied in order for kin selection to explain a given altruistic interaction between individuals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._Hamilton#Hamilton.27s_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._Hamilton#Hamilton.27s_rul...).

ollysb 15y ago

Did Richard dawkin's "selfish gene" not move us beyond this point in the debate? With the focus on survival of the fittest _genes_ rather than the fittest organisms altruism seems far more logical.

beefman 15y ago
The problem is that nobody knows what a "gene" is. It's a pseudoscientific term that implies we know where to find traits (which could be conserved by evolution) in a genome. We don't.
- ollysb 15y ago
  Regardless of how you define what a "gene" is, the "unit of selection" is a fragment of an organism's dna, not the organism itself. In this context Dawkin's explores an ESS(evolutionary stable strategy) that exhibits altruistic behaviour. It's also worth noting that group selection is shown to be unstable as an evolutionary strategy. This review of The Selfish Gene gives some good background http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/review-the-selfish-gene/ http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/review-the-selfish-gene/.
  - beefman 15y ago
    It's a lot like a binary diff, where phenotype is the source code, natural selection the programmer, and the genome the binary. Natural selection works on the phenotype, and you are saying that at all times the binary diff is compact, or sensible to talk about. Untrue. In fact it's trivially untrue because the genome is too small. Group altruism is stable and is a very strong attractor of population behavior. All that's required is that group members be able to recognize one another. http://people.brynmawr.edu/twong/models/pseudoaltruism.html http://people.brynmawr.edu/twong/models/pseudoaltruism.html Individuals born into such a group may learn this or it may be genetically inherited (instinctual), or both. Of course the distinction between learning and instinct is also a bit fuzzy.

losethos 15y ago

Let's ask God. God says, "revolt planets approbation familiarised unseen wealth heartedness counterfeit together Hosts Far bespotted furnishing disappear Devil replenishing offspring vain utensils entangling whereof what's David stomachs unbounded conceit land astrologers if stream rob undefilable me reconciliation Justina truly funeral men's fingers next sport Fear ceasest refer offerings Doth ."

VladRussian 15y ago

>Yet, strangely, self-sacrifice exists in the natural world, even though it would seem to put individual organisms at an evolutionary disadvantage: The squirrel that lets out a cry to warn of a nearby predator is necessarily putting itself in danger. its obvious - just compare 2 species of squirrels, one which demonstrate behavior described above and another which doesn't. Which species would survive over time better? Without making complicated statistical calculations, the Nature has already calculated the answer - we have the squirrel species of the first kind, and not of the second. It is also obvious why selfishness still exists - because altruistic traits seriously decrease the survivability chances of the individual specimen carrying the traits.

hugh3 15y ago
Well no, because selection operates at the level of the individual, not the species. A "defector" mutant squirrel without the instinct to cry out when it sees a predator would have an advantage over the regular squirrel. Some folks have done those complicated statistical calculations, and I believe the current consensus is that group selection is a pretty minimal effect, except in exceptional circumstances. On the other hand, I'm not sure this is a great example. As a big scary potential predator I've scared away many a predator in my time, and y'know what? They don't cry out at all! They just run! Does anyone have experience with screaming squirrels?
- VladRussian 15y ago
  >Well no, because selection operates at the level of the individual, not the species. A "defector" mutant squirrel without the instinct to cry out when it sees a predator would have an advantage over the regular squirrel. Evolution is a statistical macro process aggregating individual selection events. Thus the "defector" mutant squirrel have higher chances to survive, yet the (sub)species consisting of only such "defector" squirrels will lose to the (sub)species where statistically significant share of specimen demonstrate altruistic behavior. People discussing evolution usually make 2 major mistakes : - assigning explicit "species evolution/survival" level motivation to specific action of specific specimen - directly extrapolating individual specimen events to the level of species, not paying attention to emergent higher-order system behavior >Some folks have done those complicated statistical calculations, such calculations is like law logic - can be bent both ways. Have any idea about chaotic dynamical systems and the effect even small perturbation can cause? >Does anyone have experience with screaming squirrels? if you hike in the SF Bay Area hills, you'll see the high social organization they exhibit, including "watch duty". Edit: for illustration, as somewhat related in principle - recently "Schneier on security" posted http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/status_report_t.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/status_report_... about "dishonest minority" - their individual situation is better, yet the species consisting entirely of the "dishonest minority" type specimen would obviously lose.

Bo102010 15y ago

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection for the prevailing view.

rcthompson 15y ago
Thanks for this link. That helped me understand why group selection may be intuitive but is most likely wrong. To summarize, group selection can work mathematically, but you must carefully choose the parameters of the mathematical model in order for "grep-selective" behavior (i.e. altruism toward strangers) to be selected. (These parameters define things like the cost and benefits of altruism to the "giver" and "receiver".) The slightest variation in these parameters results in a collapse of altruism and reversion to selfishness. So while it is theoretically possible, in practice the incentives just don't line up in a way that selects group-selective behaviors over selfish ones.
- Bo102010 15y ago
  http://lesswrong.com/lw/300/group_selection_update/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/300/group_selection_update/ for a version of the view E. O. Wilson is proclaiming. My guess is that E. O. Wilson is probably right about ants, David Sloan Wilson is probably not right about group selection being like Daniel Dennett's universal acid, and Steven J. Gould was probably wrong in most of what he promoted.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

lisper 15y ago

It is astonishing to me that this discussion has gone on for as long as it has without anyone mentioning the work of Robert Axelrod: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation Axelrod showed that it is not necessary for individuals to share genes in order to cooperate to mutual benefit in an evolutionarily stable strategy.

Cymric 15y ago
Note that in the tournaments that Axelrod organize, in order for a cooperate strategy to thrive, there must be a critical mass of other cooperate strategies too. Kin selection, which Edward O. Wilson is attacking, is the current explanation of how this critical mass of cooperative entities come about. If kin selection is wrong then an alternative explanation must be found to explain the appearance of this critical mass of cooperative entities.
- lisper 15y ago
  Two things: first, kin selection is one possible mechanism by which a critical mass of cooperators can arise, but it is not the only such mechanism. And second, the mechanism that gives rise to cooperation may have evolved for some other reason, with cooperation as an ancillary effect. For example, inter-species cooperation (as between dogs and humans) is almost certainly not a result of kin selection. So even if Wilson is right and the theory of kin selection is flawed (I can't imagine how he could be right, but I haven't read the paper) that is not an indictment of Axelrod.