Group selection: The theory replaces the bogey man

Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (4):639-654 (1994)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In both biology and the human sciences, social groups are sometimes treated as adaptive units whose organization cannot be reduced to individual interactions. This group-level view is opposed by a more individualistic one that treats social organization as a byproduct of self-interest. According to biologists, group-level adaptations can evolve only by a process of natural selection at the group level. Most biologists rejected group selection as an important evolutionary force during the 1960s and 1970s but a positive literature began to grow during the 1970s and is rapidly expanding today. We review this recent literature and its implications for human evolutionary biology. We show that the rejection of group selection was based on a misplaced emphasis on genes as "replicators" which is in fact irrelevant to the question of whether groups can be like individuals in their functional organization. The fundamental question is whether social groups and other higher-level entities can be "vehicles" of selection. When this elementary fact is recognized, group selection emerges as an important force in nature and what seem to be competing theories, such as kin selection and reciprocity, reappear as special cases of group selection. The result is a unified theory of natural selection that operates on a nested hierarchy of units. The vehicle-based theory makes it clear that group selection is an important force to consider in human evolution. Humans can facultatively span the full range from self-interested individuals to "organs" of group-level "organisms." Human behavior not only reflects the balance between levels of selection but it can also alter the balance through the construction of social structures that have the effect of reducing fitness differences within groups, concentrating natural selection (and functional organization) at the group level. These social structures and the cognitive abilities that produce them allow group selection to be important even among large groups of unrelated individuals.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,377

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Rx: Distinguish group selection from group adaptation.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 1994 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (4):628-629.
The cultural evolution of emergent group-level traits.Paul E. Smaldino - 2014 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (3):243-254.
Why won't the group selection controversy go away?Samir Okasha - 2001 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (1):25-50.
More on group selection and human behavior.David Sloan Wilson & Elliott Sober - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (4):782-787.
Holism, Individualism, and the Units of Selection.Elliott Sober - 1980 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980:93 - 121.
Levels of Selection in Synergy.Alejandro Rosas - 2009 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 28 (2):135-150.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-01-20

Downloads
83 (#210,734)

6 months
12 (#418,795)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Elliott Sober
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Citations of this work

Add more citations

References found in this work

A Theory of Justice.John Rawls - 1971 - Oxford,: Harvard University Press. Edited by Steven M. Cahn.
Brainstorms.Daniel C. Dennett - 1978 - MIT Press.
The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex.Charles Darwin - 1871 - New York: Plume. Edited by Carl Zimmer.

View all 103 references / Add more references