"Relax, it's just a joke."
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This has been a very great read and inspiring as always. Ok the hiking boots are on and now off to a walk in nature. For some reason I feel the need to relate all this to something natural. I have a vision in mind of the shore of the river and bird droppings that litter the shoreline. I could ruin my hike by focusing on the bird droppings and how things would be more pristine without them, but I need to learn that this is part of the landscape and nature. As I look around I will be inspired by the beauty in all of it. I wish everyone a great day and have a feeling this hike is going to be very meaningful. Thank you all for your words.
Just seems like a waste of time to write dissertation-length posts about to me
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Deleted member 16771
Couldn't have put it better myself.
Off topic, but I just have to say it. Group Selection isn't real.
The core of natural selection is that when replicators arise and make copies of themselves, (1) their numbers will tend, under ideal conditions, to increase exponentially; (2) they will necessarily compete for finite resources; (3) some will undergo random copying errors ("random" in the sense that they do not anticipate their effects in the current environment); and (4) whichever copying errors happen to increase the rate of replication will accumulate in a lineage and predominate in the population. After many generations of replication, the replicators will show the appearance of design for effective replication, while in reality they have just accumulated the copying errors that had successful replication as their effect.
The theory of natural selection applies most readily to genes because they have the right stuff to drive selection, namely making high-fidelity copies of themselves. Granted, it's often convenient to speak about selection at the level of individuals, because it's the fate of individuals (and their kin) in the world of cause and effect which determines the fate of their genes. Nonetheless, it's the genes themselves that are replicated over generations and are thus the targets of selection and the ultimate beneficiaries of adaptations. Sexually reproducing organisms don't literally replicate themselves, because their offspring are not clones but rather composites of themselves and their mates. Nor can any organism, sexual or asexual, pass onto its offspring the traits it has acquired in its lifetime. Individual bodies are simply not passed down through the generations the way that genes are. As Stephen Jay Gould put it, "You can't take it with you, in this sense above all."
What about groups? Natural selection could legitimately apply to groups if they met certain conditions: the groups made copies of themselves by budding or fissioning, the descendant groups faithfully reproduced traits of the parent group (which cannot be reduced to the traits of their individual members), except for mutations that were blind to their costs and benefits to the group; and groups competed with one another for representation in a meta-population of groups. But everyone agrees that this is not what happens in so-called "group selection.
Most of the groupwide traits that group selectionists try to explain are cultural rather than genetic. The trait does not arise from some gene whose effects propagate upward to affect the group as a whole, such as a genetic tendency of individuals to disperse which leads the group to have a widespread geographic distribution, or an ability of individuals to withstand stressful environments which leads the species to survive mass extinction events. Instead, they are traits that are propagated culturally, such as religious beliefs, social norms, and forms of political organization. Modern group selectionists are often explicit that it is cultural traits they are talking about, or even that they are agnostic about whether the traits they are referring to are genetic or cultural.
What all this means is that so-called group selection, as it is invoked by many of its advocates, is not a precise implementation of the theory of natural selection, as it is, say, in genetic algorithms or artificial life simulations. Instead it is a loose metaphor, more like the struggle among kinds of tires or telephones. For this reason the term "group selection" adds little to what we have always called "history." Sure, some cultures have what it takes to become more populous or powerful or widespread, including expansionist ideologies, proselytizing offensives, effective military strategies, lethal weaponry, stable government, social capital, the rule of law, and norms of tribal loyalty.
Steven Pinker.The theory of natural selection applies most readily to genes because they have the right stuff to drive selection, namely making high-fidelity copies of themselves. Granted, it's often convenient to speak about selection at the level of individuals, because it's the fate of individuals (and their kin) in the world of cause and effect which determines the fate of their genes. Nonetheless, it's the genes themselves that are replicated over generations and are thus the targets of selection and the ultimate beneficiaries of adaptations. Sexually reproducing organisms don't literally replicate themselves, because their offspring are not clones but rather composites of themselves and their mates. Nor can any organism, sexual or asexual, pass onto its offspring the traits it has acquired in its lifetime. Individual bodies are simply not passed down through the generations the way that genes are. As Stephen Jay Gould put it, "You can't take it with you, in this sense above all."
What about groups? Natural selection could legitimately apply to groups if they met certain conditions: the groups made copies of themselves by budding or fissioning, the descendant groups faithfully reproduced traits of the parent group (which cannot be reduced to the traits of their individual members), except for mutations that were blind to their costs and benefits to the group; and groups competed with one another for representation in a meta-population of groups. But everyone agrees that this is not what happens in so-called "group selection.
Most of the groupwide traits that group selectionists try to explain are cultural rather than genetic. The trait does not arise from some gene whose effects propagate upward to affect the group as a whole, such as a genetic tendency of individuals to disperse which leads the group to have a widespread geographic distribution, or an ability of individuals to withstand stressful environments which leads the species to survive mass extinction events. Instead, they are traits that are propagated culturally, such as religious beliefs, social norms, and forms of political organization. Modern group selectionists are often explicit that it is cultural traits they are talking about, or even that they are agnostic about whether the traits they are referring to are genetic or cultural.
What all this means is that so-called group selection, as it is invoked by many of its advocates, is not a precise implementation of the theory of natural selection, as it is, say, in genetic algorithms or artificial life simulations. Instead it is a loose metaphor, more like the struggle among kinds of tires or telephones. For this reason the term "group selection" adds little to what we have always called "history." Sure, some cultures have what it takes to become more populous or powerful or widespread, including expansionist ideologies, proselytizing offensives, effective military strategies, lethal weaponry, stable government, social capital, the rule of law, and norms of tribal loyalty.
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Deleted member 16771
It's real.
Traits that favour survival by improving the fitness of the group overall (e.g. altruism) also favour individual survival and selection.
But we're not biologists so you can have your opinion. I just think it's overwhelmingly evident as a mechanism.
Well yes. That's true of most social species on earth. But this is not what is typically meant by "Group Selection".
Edit: Actually no, up re-reading I now realize you misused the word "fitness" here. You can say altruism improves the "fitness" of the group, sure. The group will survive longer if its member's are "altruistic". But, as Pinker and Dawkins have already explained, groups aren't "selected for". They don't replicate, and they don't make random copying errors upon replication. Genes do.
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Deleted member 16771
No no. Most of the groupwide traits that group selectionists try to explain are cultural rather than genetic. Also, I updated my response. I will repost it here.
Actually no, up re-reading I now realize you misused the word "fitness" here. You can say altruism improves the "fitness" of the group, sure. The group will survive longer if its member's are "altruistic". But, as Pinker and Dawkins have already explained, groups aren't "selected for". They don't replicate, and they don't make random copying errors upon replication. Genes do.
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Deleted member 16771
That's just a semantic difference. There is a mechanism of 'group selection' even if groups aren't 'selected for', just as there are mechanisms of 'individual selection' even though selection 'technically' happens on the gene-level.
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When do genes become memes that ruin our jeans...
2020
2020
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Deleted member 16771
...and then those memes cause the genes to ruin our jeans
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There are a few problems with what you have just said.
- We know the mechanism behind natural selection: replication, variation and selection. Those alleles that are best at getting themselves replicated will become dominant in the gene pool. Simple. But what is the mechanism for group selection?
- What does group selection explain that ordinary gene level natural selection doesn't? Everything that is supposedly explained by group selection is also explained by natural selection. What is the point of it?
Sorry, I don't understand what you're asking?
Oh right. Yes that seems right from what I know. Thanks for sharing that speech. Im going to watch it now.
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Deleted member 16771
Wolly, you are one of the most obtuse people that I've ever come across
You know damn well what the mechanism is for group selection - those alleles you mentioned? Yeah they're only alive because the individual they exist within is alive, and that guy is only alive because his group is alive.
Why isn't there more Neanderthal DNA in the modern gene pool? Because they were outcompeted by Homo Sapiens - Homo Sapiens exhibited behaviours that made their groups more cohesive (like religion). In other words, genes that coded for behaviours only beneficial at the level of the group aided the survival of individuals by ensuring they were part of successful groups. Individually, Homo Sapiens were overmatched by Neanderthalensis; they only succeeded because of their group behaviours.
It's not just intra-species group selection we're talking about, but inter-species. How many fucking examples do you want? Herd behaviours, pack behaviours, whatever you damn well like - the fitter pack will win out of the the weaker pack with fitter individuals. Is the very existence of social behaviours not enough proof for you that genes which code for group-beneficial traits are selected for? You're using a very very technical, silly definition of group selection to undermine what is a patently, obviously real mechanism.