Re: Fw: Edward O. Wilson's "bombshell" on the reality of group selection

On 2006-06-14, William Morse <wdmorse@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Standard practice for a magazine - a description such as "E.O. Wilson has
decided that an older theory of evolution may be right after all in some
specific instances" doesn't sell much copy.

But I did finally get around to reading the article, and it was
interesting, albeit not in any depth - RKS has covered the main points
pretty well. The only one he leaves out is Wilson's differentiation
between the unit of selection - which he says is the gene - and the
target of selection, which he says is usually the individual but can be
the group in some instances.

William Hunt and Wirt Atmar have previously argued that haplodiploidy and
kin selection are not the only story in the social insects, and it
appears that Wilson now agrees. Unfortunately the article does not go
into detail on the type of model Wilson is using to arrive at group
selection.

Yours,

Bill Morse


Not much of a bombshell, really. According to Ullica Segerstale in
"Richard Dawkins: How a scientist changed the way we think", edited by
Alan Green and Mark Ridley, 2006, this has been Wilson's position from
the time he published "Sociobiology" in 1975.

"... in his book Wilson is *not* promoting a move away from
1960s 'good for the species' group selection in favor of
selectionist thinking: he is, if anything, doing the reverse!"

Segerstale goes on to say that Wilson attaches not very much importance
to George Williams (because he is not sufficiently group selectionist),
to Robert Trivers, or to John Maynard Smith. All these authors are
cited prominently by Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene", publshed shortly
after "Sociobiology".

Segerstale's essay is worth reading for anyone interested in the
differences between Wilson's and Dawkins's views.

--
Anthony Campbell - ac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Microsoft-free zone - Using Linux Gnu-Debian
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews,
on-line books and sceptical articles)


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