One reason that I don't spend a lot of time bashing religion is because there are so many other flagrant departures from factual reality to pick on. Take the patriotic history of nations--the leaders who can do no wrong, the noble "us" and evil "them"--who needs supernatural agents when we can so freely re-arrange the facts of the real world?
Science is supposed to be different. Indeed, science can be idealistically defined as a cultural system designed to hold people accountable for their factual statements. Like religion, however, science as practiced often falls short of science as idealized.
The rejection of group selection and acceptance of the theory of individual selection (see T&R IV) reads disturbingly like a patriotic history. I am aware that this is a serious charge. Basically, I am saying that the theory of individual selection represents a failure of the scientific process and an example of values masquerading as facts, little different than religious, political, and other ideologies. That is why a truth and reconciliation process is needed. Before continuing, however, I want to stress that I remain idealistic about science as a cultural system that--when it works as intended--can indeed hold people accountable for their factual statements. My goal in this series of blogs is to make the scientific process work better for the issues represented by the group selection controversy. Think of me as a scientific reformer.
Consider the following passages written by highly respected evolutionists during the 1970's and 80's.
The economy of nature is competitive from beginning to end...the impulses that lead one animal to sacrifice himself for another turn out to have their ultimate rationale in gaining advantage over a third...Where it is in his own interest, every organism may reasonably be expected to aid his fellows...Yet given a full chance to act I his own interest, nothing but expediency will restrain him from brutalizing, from maiming, from murdering--his brother, his mate, his parent, or his child. Scratch and "altruist," and watch a "hypocrite" bleed (Michael Ghiselin, The Economy of Nature and the Evolution of Sex, 1974 p274).
The intervening years since Darwin have seen an astonishing retreat from his individual-centered stand, a lapse into sloppily unconscious group-selectionism, ably documented by Williams...It is only in recent years, roughly coinciding with the belated rise to fashion of Hamilton's own ideas, that the stampede has been halted and turned. We painfully struggled back, harassed by sniping from a Jesuitically sophisticated and dedicated neo-group-selectionist rearguard, until we finally regained Darwin's ground, the position that I am characterizing by the label 'the selfish organism', the position which, in its modern form, is dominated by the concept of inclusive fitness (Richard Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype, 1982 p6).
I suspect that nearly all humans believe it is a normal part of the functioning of every human individual now and then to assist someone else in the realization of that person's own interests to the actual net expense of the altruist. What this greatest intellectual revolution of the century [i.e., the theory of individual selection] tells us is that, despite our intuitions, there is not a shred of evidence to support this view of beneficence, and a great deal of convincing theory suggests that any such view will eventually be judged false (Richard Alexander, The Biology of Moral Systems, 1987 p3).
According to these authors, evolutionary theory ratifies the concept of individual self-interest as a grand explanatory principle. Lest you think that these passages were written for a popular audience, in which case a bit of poetic license might be justified, they are all taken from academic books--scientists writing for other scientists.
Patriotic histories represent conflicts in black-and-white terms and their resolution as definitive. The passages quoted above express complete certainty. Alexander's phrase "a great deal of convincing theory suggests that any such view will eventually be judged false" does not invite continuing inquiry. Richard Dawkins went even further:
As for group selection itself, my prejudice is that it has soaked up more theoretical ingenuity than its biological interest warrants. I am informed by the editor of a leading mathematics journal that he is continually plagued by ingenious papers purporting to have squared the circle. Something about the fact that this has been proved to be impossible is seen as an irresistible challenge by a certain type of intellectual dilettante. Perpetual motion machines have a similar fascination for some amateur inventors. The case of group selection is hardly analogous: it has never been proved to be impossible, and never could be. Nevertheless, I hope I may be forgiven for wondering whether part of group selection's romantic appeal stems from the authoritative hammering the theory has received ever since Wynne-Edwards did us the valuable service of bringing it out into the open (The Extended Phenotype, 1982 p115).
Notice how Dawkins carefully acknowledges that group selection is a theoretical possibility. The basic logic of multilevel selection is impeccable and was affirmed by Williams and others, as I recount in T&R IV. The question is whether group-level selection can ever prevail over individual-level selection. According to Dawkins, this question had been answered so authoritatively that doubters could be compared to romantic dreamers and intellectual dilettantes searching for perpetual motion machines.
Given the certainty with which group selection was rejected, it was kept alive in articles and textbooks primarily as a cautionary tale for how not to think. It became almost mandatory for authors to inform their readers that group selection was not being invoked. Just as patriots vilify their opponents and make sure that they are counted on the side of the righteous, invoking group selection became a heresy inviting ridicule and exclusion. Here is how Stephen Jay Gould recalls the period in an introduction to Richard Goldschmidt's The Material Basis of Evolution (p. xv), which also became the subject of ridicule:
I have witnessed widespread dogma only three times in my career as an evolutionist, and nothing in science has disturbed me more than ignorant ridicule based upon a desire or perceived necessity to follow fashion: the hooting dismissal of Wynne-Edwards and group selection in any form during the late 1960's and most of the 1970's, the belligerence of many cladists today, and the almost ritualistic ridicule of Goldschmidt by students (and teachers) who had not read him.
In future installments of the T&R series, I will show that the certainty expressed by Ghiselin, Dawkins, and Alexander was sheer bravado. The theoretical and empirical case against group selection was never strong and even what there was began to fall apart immediately. That did not alter the patriotic history, however, which is still dutifully reported in text books and transmitted as an oral tradition among graduate students, who warn each other not to invoke group selection in the presence of their faculty advisors. The patriotic history of individual selection theory is a sorry chapter in the history of science. Why did it occur in the first place?
To be continued.
After writing a bestselling atheist "consciousness-raiser," is it at all surprising that Dawkins now finds his evolution book being prominently linked to atheism in the media mind?
I'll just get to the point of my original first post then. David, I think you need to move your blog. I feel your blog is far to important to keep going so little noticed here. I agree a science section is need here (saying 'here' because mentioning this sites name may be why my original post was somehow lost), but since there is not this is not the appropriate venue for more science based pieces. I'm sure you'll have plenty to say that fits well here, but so far the great majority of your blog postings just get sucked into the void.
My last point may be more important to my concern than first appears. I do realize there have been exchanges in places like New Scientist, but that ends up to be at an even greater extreme for reaching more people with your science than here. I have read a good deal of your work and was fortunate enough to attend a couple of lectures you had given in Albany, NY at the State Museum. So, I find your blogs valuable, I find the exchanges with those that hold different opinions than yours but who are professionals in the field very valuable also. If you are going to be serious about this blogging, then perhaps going the route of someone like Massimo Piglucci would benefit all of us, because there you will find a good deal of consistency (especially when doing series type writings) and open exchanges and rebuttals. I'm still waiting for a reply from you to Dawkins,' "The Group Delusion" piece, even as I see again something pulled from his book, The Extended Phenotype. The quote you pulled above (part V) looks less the way you interpret it and more like he may be saying group selection is unfalsifiable, in other words, not really science. My interpretation seems plausible especially since Richard put in the title to his post on group selection the word "Delusion" (unless he's changed his mind on how he uses that word).
Thank you David.
In my opinion the problem for many biologists (as opposed to physicists for example) is that the scientific success of a theory is reliant on how well it tears down competing theories. Unlike in much of physics, there are usually multiple causes for any biological phenomenon. It is easy to see why biologists react to scientific theories in much the same way that humans react to most problems of reality perception. But I do think that we have come a long way, considering the influence of the interdisciplinary approach when it comes to studying things like biodiversity.
I think we would do better in identifying the complex mechanisms of the evolution of behaviors if we focused on the interdisciplinary aspect of these things, rather than by pushing individual theories that are incomplete on their own in telling the whole story, and that are used by different scientists in their different contexts while pretending to talk about the subject in general.
Another area where this applies is in the debate between yourself and Dennett on the evolutionary origins of religion. There is no reason why the focus must stay on whether religion is a parasitic meme or an adaptive strategy, when its obvious by looking at individual components of various religions that they are a bit of both.
I was one of those who intuitively thought of group selection as a mechanism for traits to be adaptive, even before I took a single class in evolutionary biology. Now, the idea of individual selection within groups coupled with group selection between groups seems to make sense. As someone who had all this figured out before grad school, I was indeed surprised to learn that there was considerable controversy on this in the 70s and 80s.
However, I think you are overstating the situation as it exists today. There may be a few who still completely dismiss group selection but its absurd to say that grad students "warn each other not to invoke group selection in the presence of their faculty advisors." Like every human endeavor, science is subject to the prejudices of those who practice it. But few religions are as malleable in the light of evidence like science is. This malleability is written into the scientific code, unlike in religions which usually require absolute beliefs. Equating the two in this aspect is disingenuous.