

Harvard's Edward O. Wilson tries to upend biology, again - gsivil
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/04/17/where_does_good_come_from/?page=full

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rcthompson
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.

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leot
It appears you may have been misinformed.

Kin selection: organism X helps organism Y because it improves the prospects
for the part of X's DNA that Y also has. The more related X is to something,
the more willing X is to sacrifice itself for it. The most extreme example is
also the most familiar: each of your cells has DNA identical to each of your
other cells (if all is well). So a cell is completely willing to kill itself
for the "collective", even at the expense of its own ability to reproduce. A
less extreme example is that of a woman declining to pursue kids of her own in
order to help tend her sister's, which could be adaptive when, e.g., food is
scarce.

Group selection: members of a particular group (e.g., a tribe) are willing to
engage in altruistic actions (e.g., suicidal defense of said tribe pre-
procreation) even though doing so maladaptive at the level of the individual's
DNA. This kind of cooperation is adaptive for the group as a whole, but not in
the least for the individual. Groups that encourage this kind of behavior will
outcompete groups that don't, so groups are selected for this trait.

IIRC, the primary reason that group selection is thought to be wrong is that
it (apparently) can't yield an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS) -- it will
always be better for the persistence of any individual's DNA if that
individual refuses to be altruistic.

~~~
rsheridan6
>IIRC, the primary reason that group selection is thought to be wrong is that
it (apparently) can't yield an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS) -- it will
always be better for the persistence of any individual's DNA if that
individual refuses to be altruistic.

I don't think that could be right, because the altruistic individuals altruism
could include killing/punishing non-altruistic individuals. Shooting deserters
comes to mind, as a real-life human example.

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xal
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
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.

~~~
guygurari
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
"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
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.

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Bo102010
<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection> for the prevailing view.

~~~
rcthompson
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
<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.

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

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VladRussian
>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
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
>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_...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/status_report_t.html)
about "dishonest minority" - their individual situation is better, yet the
species consisting entirely of the "dishonest minority" type specimen would
obviously lose.

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charlieflowers
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
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/nature0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/full/nature09205.html)
. 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
Is this it?
[http://www.uvm.edu/~cmplxsys/newsevents/pdfs/2010/nowak2010a...](http://www.uvm.edu/~cmplxsys/newsevents/pdfs/2010/nowak2010a.pdf)

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ollysb
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
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.

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ollysb
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/>.

~~~
beefman
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>
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.

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lisper
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>

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
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
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.

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harscoat
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"...

