One man’s “manipulations” are another’s group selection. The story I’ve always heard, and which makes sense to me, is that different groups have different social organizations, and some are more successful than others. It all depends on the environment, but in some environments an every-man-for-himself (or, every-man-for-himself-and-his-kin) society won’t be so economically successful. A famous example is the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies; it’s said that the latter dominate economically even while being worse for most of the individuals involved.
Pinker might argue at this point that this has nothing to do with natural selection and has everything to do with wasteful ritualizing, mythologizing, and coercion. But I don’t see how that shoots down the group-selection story, in which the qualities that help a social structure expand and be copied are not necessarily those that benefit each individual or kin. The story is that many of our social norms arise because we are part of societies that exist partly from the development of such norms.
To me, Pinker’s arguments seem inappropriately normative. Anything having to do with genes is “instinctive”, while more generally social attitudes are dismissed using words such as “faux,” “simulacra,” “myths,” “illusions,” and “manipulations.”
A clue to Pinker’s attitude comes from his statement, “the term ‘group selection’ adds little to what we have always called ‘history.’” I’m reminded of the notorious statement that all science is physics or stamp collecting. The study of history is hugely important, and what history is about (to me) is nailing down the facts. History is the ultimate descriptive social science. What happened when, who said what to whom. Sure, interpretations are central to historical work (consider, for example, A. J. P. Taylor’s “Origins of the Second World War”), but what historians contribute in particular is the particularity of history.
evolution
What would it take for you to give your life to save another? The answer of course is two siblings or eight cousins, that is, if you’re thinking like a geneticist. This famous quip, attributed to the British biologist J.B.S. Haldane, is based on the premise that you share on average 50% of your genes with a brother or sister and 12.5% with a cousin. For altruism to be worth the cost it should ensure that you break even, genetically speaking.
This basic idea was later formalized by the evolutionary theorist William Hamilton as “inclusive fitness theory” that extended Darwin’s definition of fitness–the total number of offspring produced–to also include the offspring of close relatives. Hamilton’s model has been highly influential, particularly for Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins who spent considerable time discussing its implications in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. But in the last few years an academic turf war has developed pitting the supporters of inclusive fitness theory (better known as kin selection) against a handful of upstarts advocating what is known as group selection, the idea that evolutionary pressures act not only on individual organisms but also at the level of the social group.
The latest row was sparked by the publication of Edward O. Wilson’s new book, The Social Conquest of Earth, which followed up on his 2010 paper in the journal Nature written with theoretical biologists Martin Nowak and Corina Tarniţă. In both cases Wilson opposes kin selection theory in favor of the group selection model. For a revered scientist like Wilson–a Harvard biologist, recipient of the Crafoord Prize (the Nobel of the biosciences) and two-time Pulitzer prizewinner–to adopt a marginal and widely disputed concept has received a lot of attention and caused other prominent scientists to step forward and defend the mainstream point of view.
For example, writing at The Prospect magazine, in what The Guardian newspaper called “a searingly critical review,” Dawkins argued that the proposal in Wilson’s book was based on “erroneous and downright perverse misunderstandings of evolutionary theory.” Joining him at the website Edge was Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker who wrote that group selection was a “false allure” and “a loose metaphor, more like the struggle among kinds of tires or telephones.” Likewise, University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne dismissed group selection on his blog as “a fuzzy and nebulous concept” and one that merely “has an innate appeal to those with a penchant for the religious and the spiritual.” It should go without saying that online commenters were considerably less kind (a notable exception being at Edge, where scholars were invited to comment independently).
When you hear the word evolution, you may think of iconic images of Darwin and the Beagle, representations of the “tree of life,” pictures of apes and the DNA double helix. But do you realize just how thoroughly the subject seeps into our everyday lives? To give a sense of this, we asked five experts in different fields to briefly describe an example. Listen in, and find out how evolution and the process of natural selection–the survival of those creatures that are best adapted to their environment–gives us dogs, makes us such good runners, and even helps us solve crimes.
To take root in deeply religious America, evolution needs to be a better myth. Edward O. Wilson, one of our greatest living scientists and certainly no champion of creationism or any sort of religion, has gone so far as to say we need to appreciate the scientific story of origins to the point where we can “worship the evolutionary epic.” While “worshipping the evolutionary epic” might sound absurd and even meaningless, we must not be too quick to throw out Wilson’s provocative proposal. Wilson understands, in ways that many of us do not, just how hard-wired we are to seek purpose in the world. He understands that we may not be able to simply abandon our traditional creation story without some sort of replacement. And evolution, as a full-blown origins myth, is not a satisfactory replacement for most Americans. Karl Giberson ☀
Nobody doubts that some groups survive better than others. What is controversial is the idea that differential group survival drives evolution, as differential individual survival does. The American grey squirrel is driving our native red squirrel to extinction, no doubt because it happens to have certain advantages. That’s differential group survival. But you’d never say of any part of a squirrel that it evolved to promote the welfare of the grey squirrel over the red. Wilson wouldn’t say anything so silly about squirrels. He doesn’t realise that what he does say, if you examine it carefully, is as implausible and as unsupported by evidence. The descent of Edward Wilson ☀
What caught me here is that as I read it I said aloud, “humans aren’t built for modern life!” I think of all the diets and exercise routines and explanations for ailments that stem from the idea that humans have changed our world faster than our body can evolve. As a result, an animal that evolved to live in small social groups (less than150) on savannah and to eat mostly vegetables with occasional meat acquired by long-distance running, now spends most of its time socializing with thousands of different individuals in overwhelmingly urban environments with a meat, dairy, and grain-based diet spending large amounts of time sitting.
We, Homo sapiens sapiens, are not built for the world we’ve built ourselves.
So we’ll have to change the world some more, to bring things back into balance. Or maybe we’ll turn inward and change ourselves. Both seem to be in order. Either way, the Neanderthal stands as much a fighting chance as we do. I still think cloning a Neanderthal and raising her while allowing her to be observed and studied can be done ethically.
This complete denial of evolution in American society, I think, is more responsible than anything else for creating crass and entertaining evolutionary defenders like PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins. The evidence for evolution by natural selection is overwhelming; the general theory was ushered past the point of debate before anyone reading this was born. Denying evolution as a fact of life is like denying the fact that the Earth is round or the solar system is heliocentric: It’s a denial of reality. For the sake of our country and our species, if you believe the Earth is 10,000 years old and you think such rubbish should be taught in our public schools in any shape or form, you should be called out. America, It’s Time to Stop Arguing About Evolution ☀
A GNT creation ©2007–2013
