Re: Bombshell?

Hi Joe,


in article e91phr$1vct$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joe Felsenstein at
joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 7/11/06 8:16 PM:

In article <e8me1g$2nnt$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Anon. <bob.ohara@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
"Guy Hoelzer" <hoelzer@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e8jilh$1hn0$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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.
His dissertation aimed to unify, or show the inherent unity among, all
existing models of selection. The argument is that the all imply and find
common ground in multilevel selection theory. To be clear, the argument
includes the claim that all of the theories of natural selection implicitly
rely on the validity of multilevel selection theory.

Now this does look interesting: unifying all of these ideas into a
single framework.

Without attempting to speak to which of the various levels of selection is
most
important, or which mechanisms most active, it is worth noting that Hamilton's
formula works of all of them. Crow and Aoki (PNAS 1982, 1984) showed that you
can derive from it conditions for group selection to favor an allele, and
it has long been known that reciprocal altruism fits into the same equations
as well. So there is going to be no revolution in the algebra from this.

I agree. The forthcoming paper in Am Nat by Fletcher and Zwick approaches
this question from an engineering perspective. They demonstrate that the
mechanism on which the function of both models (kin selection and reciprocal
altruism) rely is the same. This in no way undermines the algebra we have
used in either context.

Guy


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bombshell?
    ... hearing talks by both E.O. Wilson and D.S. Wilson, ... single-level selection theory ... Previous work has shown that kin selection theory is no more than a special ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Bombshell?
    ... hearing talks by both E.O. Wilson and D.S. Wilson, ... single-level selection theory ... Unifying the Theories of Inclusive Fitness and Reciprocal Altruism ... Previous work has shown that kin selection theory is no more than a special ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Article: Group selection, a theory whose time has come...again
    ... In that case we call it kin selection. ... reciprocal altruism lead to behaviors which benefit the group as a whole, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Bombshell?
    ... Unifying the Theories of Inclusive Fitness and Reciprocal Altruism ... Previous work has shown that kin selection theory is no more than a special ... rely on the validity of multilevel selection theory. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Article: Group selection, a theory whose time has come...again
    ... only evolve as a correlated response to selection at some other level. ... Kin selection works equally well as an explanation for altruism whether ... whether monogamy counts as group selection. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)