Re:The Origins of Altruism - Edward O. Wilson's Alternate Th...
by benl on Wednesday April 20, 2011 @05:17AM
(#2465889)
The reason it is dismissed is that group selection has been proposed and investigated many times in the history of evolutionary theory and found wanting, ironically because the mathematics don't hold up in realistic natural scenarios.
This article doesn't go into enough detail to tell us what is different in this new formulation of group selection. We'll have to read the paper to find out.
Re:The Origins of Altruism - Edward O. Wilson's Alternate Th...
by scotty79 on Wednesday April 20, 2011 @05:37AM
(#2465919)
I think those two theories might be considered as two factors promoting altruism and their should be tested in (unrealistic) simulations to find out how powerful they are in causing altruism.
Realistic, natural scenarios are not good for spotting significance of multiple factors. As with the bike, natural realistic bike just does not fall, and why is that is left for discussion, but when somebody builds a bike that nullifies some probable cause then it can be plainly seen that other factors also might have significant role.
To spare you the digging:
> The alternative theory holds that the origins of altruism and teamwork have nothing to do with kinship or the degree of relatedness between individuals. The key, Wilson said, is the group: Under certain circumstances, groups of cooperators can out-compete groups of non-cooperators, thereby ensuring that their genes — including the ones that predispose them to cooperation — are handed down to future generations.
I'm still not sure why this idea is dismissed because I don't see any false statement or inconsistency in it and it seems to lead to apparent altruism.