Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human Behavior

For nearly half a century, the evolution of human behavior has been presented to the public framed by the ideas of Edward O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and a cohort of sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists, and media gene-mongers. The scientific basis for the frame is the idea that the focus of Darwinian natural selection is the selfish gene, selection always acting within groups and never between groups -- individual selection rather than group selection, the unit of selection the gene. From this has followed the selfish-gene evolutionary analysis of various human behaviors, especially the analysis of altruism.

Well, it seems that the father of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson has changed his mind: in the current issue of New Scientist (November 3, 2007), evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson effectively end the hegemony of the selfish gene idea: they review the field and declare in a voice loud and clear that group selection was mistakenly cast aside during previous decades, that the evidence for group selection is too strong to be ignored, and that the current ideas about how evolution works need to be revised.

The scientific revision, well-known to professional biologists, has actually been in the works for more than a decade (see, Wilson, D.S. & Sober, E. (1994). Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17(4): 585-654) but with this new article in the popular media the public revision begins.

Here are the words of the authors in the New Scientist:

"The old arguments against group selection have all failed. It is theoretically plausible, it happens in reality, and the so-called alternatives actually include the logic of multilevel selection. Had this been known in the 1960s, sociobiology would have taken a very different direction. It is this branch point that must be revisited to put sociobiology back on a firm theoretical foundation. Accepting multilevel selection has profound implications. It means we can no longer regard the individual as a privileged level of the biological hierarchy..."

It's a new game now. Watch the media gene-mongers twist and turn as they attempt to reconcile their years of bamboozling the public with cute stories about how this or that human behavior can be explained by a simple selfish-gene analysis. The routine has always been to completely neglect the interactions of individuals with their groups -- no group selection by evolution, only selection of individuals. Altruism was explained in terms of individual genetic cost-benefit analysis. The Wilsons have now turned the table over, dishes crashing to the floor, and announced that altruism is more readily explained by group selection -- groups with more altruists tend to do better than groups with less altruists, and such groups therefore thrive.

Of course, genes are not out of the picture: for one thing, the membership of an individual in a group provides nurturing and protection to increase the probability of reproduction by that individual -- the group improving individual gene replicability.

Plain talk: The Darwinian prop of the lone cowboy rugged conservative bundle of selfish genes has now been pulled out from under the cowboy and the lone cowboy has suddenly collapsed into a mumbling baffled cartoon.

Humans are pack animals. We live and die in herds. The group provides the individual with the means of physical and psychological survival. We need the group as much as the group needs us. It's a fair trade that's been evolving for millions of years.

The selfish-gene mantra of conservative psychologists and columnists is now more or less dead. Will we see the public media focus on this new development?

There will be die-hards. There are people who don't like the idea that society is as important as genes in determining behavior. They don't like the idea that nature can select societies as well as individuals. They don't like the idea that humans have some control over their own evolution, that behavior can be changed by changing social circumstances. They are people who think there is something glorious about the lone cowboy fending for himself with a gun and a campfire. They forget that lone cowboy was usually as unwashed, unschooled, and as mute as the cows he herded.

If anyone represents our future it's those astronauts up there who depend on each other for their survival. Not the lone cowboys down here who feed on the rot of greed.

Comments

[Shawmanic]

Have I missed something over the past several years since Stephen Jay Gould's death? Isn't this pretty much what he was saying in his debates with Dawkins? (I know, bringing in the name of a "lame populist" may subject me to harangues, but he was right, no?)

Shawmanic

[DanAgin]

For those interested in the science, two important papers, now in press, will appear soon:

David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson: Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 2007 82(4):327.

David Sloan Wilson, Mark Van Vugt, and Rick O'Gorman: Multilevel Selection Theory and Major Evolutionary Transitions: Implications for Psychological Science. Current Directions in Psychological Science (in press).

I thank everyone here for their comments.

Dan Agin

[SolarPowerGuy]

I can tell from reading Dr. Agin's article, and the comments that follow, who read Richard Dawkins carefully and who did not.

What is a gene? It's a piece of DNA that replicates. Period. YOU are not a gene. You may be right to take offense at being called selfish, but try not to take it so personally when someone says it about your DNA.

There is nothing to prevent genes from teaming up in cooperative arrangements called genomes -- nothing stopping cells to form cooperative arrangements called organisms -- and nothing to stop organisms from forming cooperative arrangements called social groups. So long as these arrangements helped the GENES replicate, they can form.

Notice that I wrote "helped," not "help." Evolution does not ever truly find an optimal solution in a constantly-changing world. So if we can't find a clear justification for altruistic arrangements today, it doesn't mean that they will automatically, instantly disappear.

Back in the days when humans lived in tiny tribes, there would rarely be a time when kin selection (individuals sacrificing for their children, siblings, etc.) was distinct from group selection. That is the environment in which our social behavior developed, and the solution found at that time was good enough.

In an altruistic, kin-selected situation, remember that your genes are also present in your kin. YOU may be selfless and sacrificing, even as the very genes that live in you act selfishly -- through the very act of your sacrifice -- to preserve some copy of themselves, somewhere ELSE.

Dawkins never denied the existence of altruism, and spends a great deal of the preface of his book bemoaning his unwilling celebrity among political conservatives. Dawkins only said that it makes no sense for GENES to be altruistic, nothing more.

[Counterglow]

The only "right" answer in terms of human behaviour is "all of the above".

There's still a place for the selfish gene in sociobiological theory; it's just not the be-all, end-all some people thought it was.

[RoySV]

No more selfish gene, that was all wrong!

Well then, in the absence of selfishness, I wonder how come we're all not sending a lot more of our abundant resources to help the starving, the brutalized, and the oppressed. Seems instead we would rather buy our children fancy junk, over eat on ecologially disastrous diets, go on vacation and burn poisonous substances like coal.

Clearly the word selfish still needs to be in play as the details and popular verbiage may vary.

[dadw5boys]

LONE COWBOYS WERE USUALLY CRIMINALS OR JUST TO DAMN CRAZY TO BE AROUND PEOPLE.

[avicenna]

Well, on a macroscopic level - capitalism obviously wasn't panning out to what it was touted to be, and socialism seems to make more non-selfish sense. Same formula, different network - same organism of interest.

[Freecelladdict]

I have read, and re-read your article, but I'm afraid you slightly overstated your case in the title. None of the arguments you make or quote really makes the case that the concept of the selfish gene as a scientific theory will be dead-ended anytime soon.
But who ever declared it to be gospel, to the exclusion of all other, related theories? Did you, per chance, adhere to a more nurture-oriented stance in the nature vs. nurture debate? Were you troubled by the growing recognition of the influence of genes on behaviour?
Your choice of words leads me to believe that you feel somehow vindicated in opposing a view that not too many scientists actually held to begin with. It also seems to me that many vocal participants in this discussion have come to their position based more on emotion than on reason.
It may be misused by lots of ill-informed people, and for all the wrong reasons, but none of that makes the concept of the selfish gene any less valuable as an expanatory tool.

[Elentar]

Oh, please. The Selfish Gene never implied selfishness as an individual strategy; it was a metaphor for the fact that no matter how it was achieved, the gene was the unit of transmission, and whatever sustained and spread the gene was the successful strategy. The strategy at a social level was never implied to be Social Darwinism. There was no political component to the theory.

Individuals die, tribes intermingle and lose their identity, cultures cease to exist. What persists is the genetic information. Dawkins' objection to group selection was that it is hard to imagine any scenario where some level of group defection will not happen. The obvious manifestation of this kind of defection is sociopathology, but less extreme forms of defection are much more common. This is simply a fact.

Frankly, I've always thought that some amount of group selection must occur, simply because cooperation provides such an enormous benefit to those involved. After all, our own genome is composed of a large group of genes working in concert.

Also, if you think group selection paints a rosier picture, keep in mind that it is the driving ideology behind racism. Extreme individualism encourages rapacious capitalism; tribalism encourages genocide and war. Let's hope that no one goes to the opposite extreme and insists on group selection only. That would be a whole new world of ugliness.

[Crowhaul]

I don't think one can quite eliminate the importance of the concept of the selfish gene. After all, it is not a 'society' that passes down it's genes; it is not a 'culture' that humps the leg of the nearest willing evolutionary participant.

Ultimately it is sexual selection at the individual level, not a 'societal' level, that determines the genetic makeup of the next generation....and who we choose to mate with (and all those altruistic little things we do to enable the act) is ultimately - and undeniably - a selfish act.

[Tellmethetruth]

Very good post - the fact that science has been used to as proof of selfishness vs just as much evidence exists in science for unselfishness - look at ants and bees and how each one lays down it's life for the hive or ant colony as a prime example, one ant chews the food and shares it with the fellow ant, etc.etc. nothing in nature does exist in isolation. How science has been misused to prove a selfish economic system of rugged individualism with each human left to his/her own to survive versus a collective social common good reason to depend and support one another. It was never about science, it was about the unjust distribution of wealth in this country between the powerful and the powerless with a selfish theory labeled as science.

[elleng]

So why are the Democrats so messed up????

[Bateman]

My understanding of modern multilevel selection theorists is that they do not deny kin selection but regard it as a specific case of a more general set of conditions that produce cooperative behavior.

It is unfortunate the political and moralistic associations of the colloquial usages these terms lead to widespread misinterpretation and distortion. Competition and cooperation, and selfishness and selflessness, are important features of multiple levels of biological organization, from genes on up. These phenomena have had a major role in generating the immense diversity and complexity that exists in living systems.

In addition, selflessness at a given level can be manifested as selfishness at a higher level. A cooperating community of cells can present itself as a self-interested individual. A highly functionally integrated social group may be quite selfish within the context of a larger community of social groups.

Attempts to apply group selection to evolutionary analyses of human behavior (a broader research program than evolutionary psychology) have had a mixed record. (For a flawed example, see Kevin MacDonald.)

[slg]

Not everybody went along with the selfish gene justification for dominion over all. Many were not surprised when the natural outcome turned out to be the Bush/Cheney cabal.

Many hands make light work. Humans learned this lesson hundreds of thousands of years ago. It was the Domestication Revolution, 9000 years ago of privately owned land, of tribes and extended families that became prominent and began to alter human nature. Had it been a positive direction for humanity to grow there would have been far less abuse and suffering. By now we might have reached the next level of human social understanding.

What we've got is a lot of confusion, uncertainty and frustration. It's fertile ground to promote the ideology of Us and Them.

If you wonder why they're so arrogant, the masters of the selfish gene, it's because the common person bows readily to overbearing authority out of self preservation. All successful bosses have a gene that masks conscience, negating empathy. They feel contempt in the face of altruism.

Every packet of sperm has several types within it. The hunter sperm seeks out intruder sperms and strangles them. The enabler sperms sacrifice themselves to promote the advancement of the carrier sperm. This is why families and tribes are so effective. When each individual willingly fulfills a specific function, the group is more likely to survive.

Taken on a larger scale the Planet survives producing mass diversity and by repeating individual forms billions of times, each in it's own niche. Local competition seems intense but when the evidence over the entire globe is tallied, cooperation, symbiosis, empathy and sharing are the most profitable and the most likely to ensure a successful Planet. ie) in the long run, a world that works for everybody.

[truthsabitterpill]

"There are people who don't like the idea that society is as important as genes in determining behavior."

Who are these people? Certainly not Dawkins. Even I realize that society does play a part in the evolution of the species. It, like the selfish gene is not the end all be all.
I agree with fairwitness, as an individual who has transported myself beyond my upbringing and my environment to evolve into a singular person who is fundamentally different than my own twin. Given freedoms to become that which we aspire to, our species can reach beyond where the "crowd" would have us stand.

Truth