Re: Bombshell?


Guy Hoelzer wrote:
I just returned from a conference last week where I had the pleasure of
hearing talks by both E.O. Wilson and D.S. Wilson, and interacting with both
them afterwards. If the recent publications referenced below are like a
whiff of a bombshell, then cover your heads because it may really be about
to blow. The pair of Wilsons are collaborating on a paper soon to be
(already?) submitted to Science; of course, it may be rejected there and
eventually come out elsewhere. They will be making a MUCH stronger case for
multilevel selection, and a case for the evident insufficiency of
single-level selection theory (i.e., individual selection only) and kin
selection in that paper. This may be the paper that brings this debate all
the way to the surface of the scientific dialogue regarding evolution.

The problem is that there is nothing to debate. The belief that
selection only happens to individuals and not also to groups is not
based on evidence or logic. It's based on deliberate ignorance.


I also had the pleasure of listening to and speaking with a young scientists
just entering his first postdoc who has a paper in press that I see as an
important contribution to this debate. His name is Jeff Fletcher and I
expect we will be seeing his name plenty. Here is the reference that should
appear in an upcoming issue of the American Naturalist:

Unifying the Theories of Inclusive Fitness and Reciprocal Altruism
Jeffrey A. Fletcher and Martin Zwick

Previous work has shown that kin selection theory is no more than a special
case of group selection theory, and Jeff shows in this paper that the
distinction between kin selection and reciprocal altruism is a false one.

The problem here will be defining kin selection and/or reciprocal
altruism. Neither of these concepts is anything more than a vague
notion.


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