9 ms·

Much more importantly (since nature doesn't care much about unsuccessful individuals) it's a survival mechanism for the pack I am not a biologist, but accordin

by pfedor 17y ago

Much more importantly (since nature doesn't care much about unsuccessful individuals) it's a survival mechanism for the pack I am not a biologist, but according to (what I understood of) "The Selfish Gene" and the like, the natural selection takes place on the level of genes. Since the successful reproduction of a gene is usually (barring some exceptional situations mentioned in the book) tightly coupled with the fate of the individual carrying the gene, reasoning about natural selection that operates on individuals typically leads to correct conclusions. Reasoning about natural selection on packs is on the other hand typically incorrect, if it leads to conclusions different from the individuals-based selection. In your example, if you imagine two genes, one that tells the low status carrier to accept starvation, and the other that tells its carrier to fight for dear life no matter what its social status, the second gene will win and the first one will go extinct, even if from the point of view of the whole pack the first gene could be better. This is not to say that your hypothesis is invalid, as I'm sure it can be rephrased in terms of genes/individuals without losing the core message.

danteembermage 17y ago
IANAB either, but pack survival could have a role in gene transmission, it would just be more indirect. Suppose pack A is full of extreme non-depressives and B is depressive. Highlander style, only one male in A will survive while B can maintain a back-up stock in case accident befalls the alpha. That said I don't see why the gene expression couldn't be: if (alpha) { act like alpha } else { act depressed } individually beneficial and pack beneficial simultaneously.
jibiki 17y ago
Yep. Here's a really good example from EY: http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism... "The mathematical conditions for group selection overcoming individual selection were too extreme to be found in Nature. Why not create them artificially, in the laboratory? Michael J. Wade proceeded to do just that, repeatedly selecting populations of insects for low numbers of adults per subpopulation. And what was the result? Did the insects restrain their breeding and live in quiet peace with enough food for all? No; the adults adapted to cannibalize eggs and larvae, especially female larvae." (Here's the actual paper: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/73/12/4604.pdf http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/73/12/4604.pdf )
jballanc 17y ago
Ok, well... I am a biologist and one of the first things you need to understand about "The Selfish Gene" is that much of what Dawkins presents as fact is very much under dispute in the biological research community. Be very cautious about accepting anything he presents as "the one true way" of understanding evolution. It is anything but! One term you can Google for more information is "multi-level selection". I find the pack animal explanation actually rather interesting. It meshes well with some of the research that I'm doing on evolution as targeted at resource utilization efficiency. I think the real question is to what extent primitive man was a "pack" animal as opposed to a "group" or "tribe" animal. That is, I think there are many open ended questions regarding the social structure of early man (for one thing, if early man was a pack animal you'd have to explain the origin of monogamy, or at least limited polygamy, in place of the harem structure of most pack animals).
- mdemare 17y ago
  Evolution is essentially an algorithm. That's why we can use logic to predict that genes that regulate behavior for "less successful individuals to slink away and accept starvation" are unlikely to arise, since not a single one of the ancestors of that individual were less successful and slunk away to accept starvation.
  - jballanc 17y ago
    There's a mister Hardy and a mister Weinberg that would like to have a word with you about that logic... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy-Weinberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy-Weinberg The other thing to keep in mind is that evolution works as a movement through nucleotide space over a fitness landscape. The fundamental flaw in much of Dawkins work is his reliance on a biologically unrealistic definition of a "gene". Sure, if you go with his definition of genes then logic can tell you all sorts of things about evolution that aren't necessarily true.
- berntb 17y ago
  Most criticism I've seen has been from marxist biologists? (Like intelligence being largely inherited, it seems to contradict some dogma in Marxism.) This sums up the old debate: http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html (As a non-biologist, even I know the stature of Maynard Smith, Mayr etc.) Is there some new development with support for e.g. species-selection, etc?

by pfedor 17y ago

danteembermage 17y ago

IANAB either, but pack survival could have a role in gene transmission, it would just be more indirect. Suppose pack A is full of extreme non-depressives and B is depressive. Highlander style, only one male in A will survive while B can maintain a back-up stock in case accident befalls the alpha. That said I don't see why the gene expression couldn't be: if (alpha) { act like alpha } else { act depressed } individually beneficial and pack beneficial simultaneously.

jibiki 17y ago

Yep. Here's a really good example from EY: http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism... "The mathematical conditions for group selection overcoming individual selection were too extreme to be found in Nature. Why not create them artificially, in the laboratory? Michael J. Wade proceeded to do just that, repeatedly selecting populations of insects for low numbers of adults per subpopulation. And what was the result? Did the insects restrain their breeding and live in quiet peace with enough food for all? No; the adults adapted to cannibalize eggs and larvae, especially female larvae." (Here's the actual paper: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/73/12/4604.pdf http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/73/12/4604.pdf )

jballanc 17y ago

Ok, well... I am a biologist and one of the first things you need to understand about "The Selfish Gene" is that much of what Dawkins presents as fact is very much under dispute in the biological research community. Be very cautious about accepting anything he presents as "the one true way" of understanding evolution. It is anything but! One term you can Google for more information is "multi-level selection". I find the pack animal explanation actually rather interesting. It meshes well with some of the research that I'm doing on evolution as targeted at resource utilization efficiency. I think the real question is to what extent primitive man was a "pack" animal as opposed to a "group" or "tribe" animal. That is, I think there are many open ended questions regarding the social structure of early man (for one thing, if early man was a pack animal you'd have to explain the origin of monogamy, or at least limited polygamy, in place of the harem structure of most pack animals).

mdemare 17y ago
Evolution is essentially an algorithm. That's why we can use logic to predict that genes that regulate behavior for "less successful individuals to slink away and accept starvation" are unlikely to arise, since not a single one of the ancestors of that individual were less successful and slunk away to accept starvation.
- jballanc 17y ago
  There's a mister Hardy and a mister Weinberg that would like to have a word with you about that logic... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy-Weinberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy-Weinberg The other thing to keep in mind is that evolution works as a movement through nucleotide space over a fitness landscape. The fundamental flaw in much of Dawkins work is his reliance on a biologically unrealistic definition of a "gene". Sure, if you go with his definition of genes then logic can tell you all sorts of things about evolution that aren't necessarily true.
berntb 17y ago
Most criticism I've seen has been from marxist biologists? (Like intelligence being largely inherited, it seems to contradict some dogma in Marxism.) This sums up the old debate: http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html (As a non-biologist, even I know the stature of Maynard Smith, Mayr etc.) Is there some new development with support for e.g. species-selection, etc?