> Group selection, a theory whose time has come...again
>
> Sociobiology, the discipline founded on Darwin's theory of group evolution,
> is in theoretical disarray. In a landmark article for the December issue of
> the Quarterly Review of Biology, eminent evolutionary scientists David Sloan
> Wilson and Edward O. Wilson usher in a new era in evolutionary science.
>
> "Although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to
> each individual man and his children over the other men of the same
> tribe...an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an
> immense advantage to one tribe over another."
>
> With these words, Charles Darwin proposed an evolutionary explanation for
> morality and pro-social behaviors- individuals behaving for the good of
> their group, often at their own expense-that anticipated the future
> discipline of Sociobiology. A century after this famous passage was
> published in The Descent of Man (1871), however, Darwin's explanation based
> on group selection had become taboo and has not recovered since.
>
> In a landmark article for The Quarterly Review of Biology, "Rethinking the
> Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology," eminent evolutionary scientists
> David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson-whose book Sociobiology:The New
> Synthesis brought widespread attention to the field in 1975-call for an end
> to forty years of confusion and divergent theories.
>
> They propose a new consensus and theoretical foundation that affirms Darwin'
> s original conjecture and is supported by the latest biological findings.
>
> Wilson and Wilson trace much of the confusion in the field to the 1960's,
> when most evolutionists rejected "for the good of the group" thinking and
> insisted that all adaptations must be explained in terms of individual
> self-interest. In an even more reductionistic move, genes were called "the
> fundamental unit of selection," as if this was an argument against group
> selection. Scientific dogma became entrenched in popular culture with the
> publication of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (1976). Although evidence
> in favor of group selection began accumulating almost immediately after its
> rejection, its taboo status prevented a systematic re-evaluation of the
> field until now.
>
> Based on current theory and evidence, Wilson and Wilson show that natural
> selection is unequivocally a multilevel process, as Darwin originally
> envisioned, and that adaptations can evolve at all levels of the biological
> hierarchy, from genes to ecosystems. They conclude with a rallying cry that
> paraphrases Rabbi Hillel: "Selfishness beats altruism within groups.
> Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary,"
> Wilson and Wilson free sociobiology to once again pursue all lines of
> inquiry within its discipline.
>
> Source: University of Chicagohttp://www.physorg.com/news115476686.html
>
> Posted by
> Robert Karl Stonjek