Group selection in The Huffington Post

Oh, I thought the guy was dead. I scimmed through the first and the last article and it's the same old story. It's sad ..

DSW has an essay on whether evolution explains human nature at the Templeton foundation:
http://templeton.org/evolution/
Also there are Joan Roughgarden & Bob Wright, who just had a diavlog:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/19126

Agreed, Razib. DSW is a bit dogmatic about promoting group selection, but thanks to him (and a few others) the topic is no longer outright dismissed as taboo. He's a pretty damn good theorist who managed to stick to his guns during a period when almost all others jumped ship or, at the very least, where hanging out in the galley playing mainstream poker.

The fact that kin selection is a form a group selection is pretty convincing evidence that group selection can occur in nature under the right conditions.

Or the fact that kin selection is the only form of group selection that has been shown to occur, and that this is effectively individual selection, suggests that the group selection debate is long dead. What we see with trait group selection is in fact a sorting process caused by selection at the individual level.

John Wilkins:

Or the fact that kin selection is the only form of group selection that has been shown to occur, and that this is effectively individual selection, suggests that the group selection debate is long dead.

Phew! I was at a bio dept in a uni in the 1970s where it was a hanging offence to give any credence to group selection (other than kin selection, which I agree is entirely explicable through individual selection). Having left the field, I would intermittently read pieces and I could never work out whether group selection was "in" or "out".

I don't under-rate mathematics, but I do think that it is a mistake to assume that because one can construct a mathematical model showing some effect, that therefore that effect must exist in the natural world. Show me a convincing explanation of group selection observed in the field, with a corresponding mathematically plausible model, and I'll be happier - but I suspect that any group selection model that works can probably be mathematically rearranged to support an argument based on individual selection.

My guess (and it is a guess!) is that gene flow and the random and chaotic structure of reproductive populations, with the over-arching force of individual selection are just too strong for group selection.

"a sorting process caused by selection at the individual level"

As opposed to what? I mean: wouldn't the selective action always ultimately take place at an individual level anyway? Isn't the question how these developments are to be best conceived rather than whether or not it is possible resolve them into a question of individual selection?

Hi John,

I disagree that kin selection is "effectively individual selection." All we need for selection to act at any level of the biological hierarchy is 1) multiple units at that level, and 2) variation among those units. The reason individual selection is particularly prominent is because heritability is particularly strong at that level, but this doesn't rule out things like species selection, kin selection or selection at any other level. To me, a convincing and pithy explanation as to why kin selection is NOT simply a type of individual selection is given here:

http://www.webpages.ttu.edu/searice/group.html