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

[bkelly]

I don't remember where I read it, but Dawkins has stated that the book could have been named "The Cooperative Gene." Like the appearance of its cover, don't put too much importance on the name of a book. Read it.

[Dap]

Dear Mr. Agin,

Thank you SOooooo much for this essay/post, it has clarified things for me.

It also confirms what I have said, "philosophy is far from science AND *Never* the twain shall meet." Yes I said never. Philosophy shall always be a subjective *Art* form. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) :)
Agape.

[isis]

If it wasn't for my yoga class I would want to rip the selfish to shreds.

[fairwitness]

Nice to know biology can learn to revise its dogma when presented with reasonable arguments based on verifiable facts (or best approximations). But it might be wrong to assume that "social citcumstances" are the end of the evolutionary story.

I would suggest that evolution is on-going and even perhaps accelerating rapidly in the direction of individual "awakening­"--individ­uals quickly evolving away from dependence on group-thought and group-behaviors and toward the increased consciousness of a dimension beyond both.

Suddenly, evoutionarily speaking, a new experience of human selfhood is emerging in the species, characterized by a reduction in determined, programmed modes of being.

This is worth a look--maybe both the "selfish" and the "tribal" genes are being superceded by "global" and perhaps even "transcendental" modes of being. There is evidence..­.

[blindjester]

I always thought that the arguments excluding group selection seemed more ideological than scientific. I'm prepared to believe that the Wilsons are right to change their mind.

I may need to go back and re-read Dawkins' recent writing, but it seemed that he had softened his stance on this topic, or clarified it. We could ask him.

But wouldn't this new understanding apply only to social species? Altruism and other group effects could reasonably develop among bees or wolves, but not bears or sharks, it seems to me.

I'm asking...

[RumiSouth]

Great! Now can we get back to a national conversation not about what Americans can do for themselves, but what they can do together?

For a generation, the reigning political paradigm has been "every man for himself." Maggie Thatcher's famous words, "There is no society, there are only families," has undermined the foundations of the American contract. No one owes their fellow American anything anymore, and it hasn't made us better off.

http://www.osborneink.com

[Bateman]

1. Group selection vs individual selection says nothing about the role of genes in determining behavior. Groups, like individuals, are a level of selection.

2. Selfish genes does not mean selfish individuals ("individualism"). In fact, selfish genism is perfectly compatible with not only cooperative individuals but also cooperative genes.

3. D.S. Wilson and other group selectionists are as adaptationist and selectionist as any 'individual-level selection' evolutionary biologist.

4. Group selection is no more "nice" than individual selectionism - it involves differential extinction of groups. In the human realm, that can have grim implications.

5. Groups at one level are individuals at another - a multicellular organism is a group from the cellular perspective but also an individual. Major evolutionary transitions involve the emergence of new levels of selection.

6. DS Wilson and other group (multilevel) selectionists acknowledge the importance of individual-level selection.