[ExI] Evolution "for the Good of the Group"

[hkhenson]

At 02:14 AM 9/21/2008, you wrote:
>--- On Sat, 9/20/08, hkhenson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
>
> > "Is evolution a team sport, or is the
> > contest for survival played out
> > strictly between individuals?"
> >
> > Trivers, Hamilton, and others showed and it was popularized
> > by
> > Dawkins that evolution happens at the *gene* level.  So the
> > first
> > sentence is out of main stream evolutionary thinkings
>
>That is certainly the mainstream opinion but the mainstream itself 
>has drastically changed its opinion over the years like a car 
>swerving back and forth over an icy road. I think what you see is 
>the result of overcompensation from one extreme viewpoint to 
>another. Ultimately both "selfish gene theory" and "group selection 
>theory" are extremist views that fail to see the big picture. To 
>adhere blindly to either view is to ignore mountains of evidence 
>that show merit to either side of the debate. I am in favor of a 
>multi-level selection theory that correctly observes that evolution 
>occurs at *all* levels of complexity from molecules to nation-states 
>and beyond.

You have to do violence to the concept of Darwinian 
evolution.  Evolution is change over time in the frequency of 
characteristics, such as the dark morphs of moths in soot covered 
England.  But the dark morph was the result of more expression of a 
gene for melanin.  Genes (expressed through 
reproduction/embryogenesis) are the reason for both persistence of 
form and the slow change of form as they undergo variation and 
selection.  What is the equivalence of genes, reproduction and 
embryogenesis in nation-states?  Memes?  But if you say memes, the 
damned things don't stick with one nation.

> > "There's
> > no question that natural selection acts
> > on individual organisms: Those with
> > favorable traits are more likely to pass
> > along their genes to the next generation."
> >
> > Of course as Hamilton showed, that's not the only way.
> > Consider bees
> > for ghod's sake.
>
>Well there are thousands of species of bees. Are you talking honey 
>bees or mason bees.

When people say bees without qualification they normally mean the 
social honey bee.  I should have used ants as an example.  Wilson is 
one of the world's foremost experts on ants.

> > "But perhaps similar processes
> > could operate at other levels of the biological
> > hierarchy. In this way natural
> > selection could perpetuate traits that
> > are favorable not to an individual but
> > to a social unit such as a flock or a colony,"
> >
> > Depends.  Does the flock/colony consist of related
> > individuals?  Again, think of bees defending a hive.
>
>Spike's ants vigorously defend aphids which aren't even in the same 
>phylogenetic order as they are let alone related members of the same 
>species. Could there be ant genes that increase the fitness of 
>aphids? After all ants will kill and eat most other insects.

Almost certainly there are such ant genes.  But their evolutionary 
function is not to increase the fitness of aphids.  Such genes were 
selected because they increased the fitness of *ants.*

snip

> > And evolution is the differential survival of genes.
>
>Call me an atypical biologist but I would say that evolution is the 
>differential survival of cells. A naked chromosome is not even alive 
>so how can it survive? The transhumanist in me would go farther and 
>say that evolution is differential persistance of replicating 
>information encoded on any substrate whatsoever.

The substrate that carries biological information is DNA and 
sometimes RNA.  Persistent patterns of that information (that often 
code for proteans) are called genes.  Dawkins talks about the 
difficulty in deciding just what the replicating information is in 
Extended Phenotype.

>So in my opinion even automobiles evolve, even though they don't 
>even live in a strictly biological sense.

You can use "evolution" to describe stars over time, but it has 
nothing to do with the mechanisms of biological evolution.

> > I have made the case in "EP, memes and the origin of
> > war" that humans
> > have similar psychological traits.
> > When the risk to the genes of an individual warrior is less
> > than the
> > risk summed over his relatives multiplied by their
> > relatedness, i.e.,
> > without killing the neighbors the kids will starve next dry
> > season,
> > then psychological mechanisms get turned on that synch up a
> > tribe's
> > warriors to make a do or die effort.
>
>While I don't doubt that is certainly part of the psychology of 
>humans, I am not certain how much of that has a genetic basis.

All human psychology has a genetic basis.  Psychology emerges from 
brains.  Brains are the product of genes.  How could it be otherwise?

snip

>In science the most water-tight logic must yield to the weight of 
>evidence. That is what distinguishes empiricism from formal logic.

Evidence is interpreted using models.  I know of *no* model for group 
selection that is not better understood by conventional gene 
selection.  If you can cite an example where there is evidence that 
clearly rules out gene selection present or past, let me know.

Sorry to be so emphatic, but fuzzy thinking irritates me.

Keith