Jim McGinn
Sun, Jun-25-06, 17:15
Robert Karl Stonjek wrote:
> The idea that group selection (or multilevel selection)
> could have any validity is sometimes dismissed in rather
> derogatory terms on this list.
Group selection is generally dismissed for reasons that are
subconscious and ideological to those that dismiss it. There
is no shortage of empirical data/observations that prove the
validity of group selection. Even the existence of
multicellular organisms (in the context of the assumption that
they evolved from single celled organisms) proves the validity
of group selection.
> It may therefore come as a surprise that one of the main
> "fathers" of ev psych, Edward O. Wilson, now theorizes that
> kin selection is NOT the why of the evolution of eusocial
> insects, as widely accepted, but rather group selection --
> and the same seems to hold true for humans.
There has never been any empirical evidence for kin selection
(as it is described by Hamilton). Its acceptance--as I've
demonstrated here in this NG--is based only on the confusion
associated with the rather loose (specifically, semantic
ambiguity) terminology of the current paradigm. It's hard for
me to imagine that this isn't obvious to a guy as smart as
Wilson. But then maybe he's as much a victim as anybody else.
>
> In an interview in the June 2006 Discover Mag (pp. 58-61),
> Wilson says that one reason he now rejects the "standard
> theory" he helped develop is that there's very little
> evidence that ants and termites in the early stages of
> evolution could determine who's a brother, sister, cousin,
> etc. He says: "They're not acting to favor collateral kin.
> The new view that I'm proposing is that it was group
> selection all along, an idea first roughly formulated by
> Darwin."
Not much of a bombshell.
>
> The key to Wilson's new theory is the relatively recent
> recognition that genes can be plastic in their expression,
> in response to different environmental conditions.
Recent?
> "So consider a gene that has plasticity such that in one
> setting an individual carrying that gene becomes
> reproductive. Maybe this individual was the ant or wasp
> that arrived first, maybe it was the biggest one, or maybe
> it was the one to just by accident start laying eggs first.
> The important thing is that the reproductive role can shift
> from one colony to next and from one generation to the
> next. The group forms, and some individuals by circumstance
> become workers. Their cooperative behavior and the division
> of labour confer superiority on that group, with that
> particular gene, over other groups. It could be as simple
> as that."
It is as simple as that.
>
> Wilson explains that altruism is normally discouraged due to
> the fitness advantages of individual survival and
> reproduction, but it could pay for individuals to subvert
> their own interests to those of a group if the group is able
> to defend and exploit a very valuable resource (such as a
> hollow stem that could be a nest site).
The tendency to reside in enclosures is what set the stage for
social insects to begin to be group selected.
> And once ants and termites became "fully social" they went
> on to dominate the world.
>
> As for humans, Wilson agrees with Darwin that our evolution
> was largely a matter of "tribe against tribe"
Tribe against tribe? Nah. Human evolution clearly indicates
something different: community against community. (The
differences being communities also involve territory and the
resources therein.) Strangely enough this competition did not
originally involve much of any direct conflict between
communities. Rather the competition was economic (as described
in my hypothesis in detail).
> -- which might explain the endemic warfare
Yes, it involved warfare as a means of preserving resources
(economic) in a community's territory. It was part of a
strategy to survive seasonal dessication. Communities that
failed to preserve the resources in their communal territory
were, essentially, massacred by predatory feeding frenzies
during the depths of the dry season.
> AND altruism in which humans have engaged since prehistory.
> "The genes that favour this type of group cohesion would
> also favor an innate sense of morality and group loyalty.
> It would explain how so often group or tribe loyalty
> overrides even family loyalty." Seems like there's already
> a ton of proposals along those lines....Wilson is
> presumably working on clarifying why group selection, and
> not kin selection, is the more significant mechanism (but
> at the end of the interview he says his theorizing is still
> a work in progress and formal presentation on humans might
> take a couple of years).
The best he can hope to do is to recast the hypothesis that
I've already established.
>
> The full interview can be viewed (but subscription required)
> at:
> http://www.discover.com/issues/jun-06/features/e-o-wilson/
>
> Note: The "bombshell" in the title of this post is how
> Discover Mag refers to the contents of the interview
In a discipline so thoroughly ensconced in sematic confusion
it's hard to imagine anything being considered a "bombshell."
Jim
> The idea that group selection (or multilevel selection)
> could have any validity is sometimes dismissed in rather
> derogatory terms on this list.
Group selection is generally dismissed for reasons that are
subconscious and ideological to those that dismiss it. There
is no shortage of empirical data/observations that prove the
validity of group selection. Even the existence of
multicellular organisms (in the context of the assumption that
they evolved from single celled organisms) proves the validity
of group selection.
> It may therefore come as a surprise that one of the main
> "fathers" of ev psych, Edward O. Wilson, now theorizes that
> kin selection is NOT the why of the evolution of eusocial
> insects, as widely accepted, but rather group selection --
> and the same seems to hold true for humans.
There has never been any empirical evidence for kin selection
(as it is described by Hamilton). Its acceptance--as I've
demonstrated here in this NG--is based only on the confusion
associated with the rather loose (specifically, semantic
ambiguity) terminology of the current paradigm. It's hard for
me to imagine that this isn't obvious to a guy as smart as
Wilson. But then maybe he's as much a victim as anybody else.
>
> In an interview in the June 2006 Discover Mag (pp. 58-61),
> Wilson says that one reason he now rejects the "standard
> theory" he helped develop is that there's very little
> evidence that ants and termites in the early stages of
> evolution could determine who's a brother, sister, cousin,
> etc. He says: "They're not acting to favor collateral kin.
> The new view that I'm proposing is that it was group
> selection all along, an idea first roughly formulated by
> Darwin."
Not much of a bombshell.
>
> The key to Wilson's new theory is the relatively recent
> recognition that genes can be plastic in their expression,
> in response to different environmental conditions.
Recent?
> "So consider a gene that has plasticity such that in one
> setting an individual carrying that gene becomes
> reproductive. Maybe this individual was the ant or wasp
> that arrived first, maybe it was the biggest one, or maybe
> it was the one to just by accident start laying eggs first.
> The important thing is that the reproductive role can shift
> from one colony to next and from one generation to the
> next. The group forms, and some individuals by circumstance
> become workers. Their cooperative behavior and the division
> of labour confer superiority on that group, with that
> particular gene, over other groups. It could be as simple
> as that."
It is as simple as that.
>
> Wilson explains that altruism is normally discouraged due to
> the fitness advantages of individual survival and
> reproduction, but it could pay for individuals to subvert
> their own interests to those of a group if the group is able
> to defend and exploit a very valuable resource (such as a
> hollow stem that could be a nest site).
The tendency to reside in enclosures is what set the stage for
social insects to begin to be group selected.
> And once ants and termites became "fully social" they went
> on to dominate the world.
>
> As for humans, Wilson agrees with Darwin that our evolution
> was largely a matter of "tribe against tribe"
Tribe against tribe? Nah. Human evolution clearly indicates
something different: community against community. (The
differences being communities also involve territory and the
resources therein.) Strangely enough this competition did not
originally involve much of any direct conflict between
communities. Rather the competition was economic (as described
in my hypothesis in detail).
> -- which might explain the endemic warfare
Yes, it involved warfare as a means of preserving resources
(economic) in a community's territory. It was part of a
strategy to survive seasonal dessication. Communities that
failed to preserve the resources in their communal territory
were, essentially, massacred by predatory feeding frenzies
during the depths of the dry season.
> AND altruism in which humans have engaged since prehistory.
> "The genes that favour this type of group cohesion would
> also favor an innate sense of morality and group loyalty.
> It would explain how so often group or tribe loyalty
> overrides even family loyalty." Seems like there's already
> a ton of proposals along those lines....Wilson is
> presumably working on clarifying why group selection, and
> not kin selection, is the more significant mechanism (but
> at the end of the interview he says his theorizing is still
> a work in progress and formal presentation on humans might
> take a couple of years).
The best he can hope to do is to recast the hypothesis that
I've already established.
>
> The full interview can be viewed (but subscription required)
> at:
> http://www.discover.com/issues/jun-06/features/e-o-wilson/
>
> Note: The "bombshell" in the title of this post is how
> Discover Mag refers to the contents of the interview
In a discipline so thoroughly ensconced in sematic confusion
it's hard to imagine anything being considered a "bombshell."
Jim