Group selection

Group pick is a filed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene.

Early authors such(a) as V. C. Wynne-Edwards together with Konrad Lorenz argued that the behavior of animals could affect their survival together with reproduction as groups, speaking for exercise of actions for the benefit of the species. In the 1930s, R.A. Fisher and J.B.S. Haldane reported the concept of kin selection, a throw of altruism from the gene-centered impression of evolution, arguing that animals should sacrifice for their relatives, and thereby implying that they should non sacrifice for non-relatives. From the mid 1960s, evolutionary biologists such(a) as John Maynard Smith, W. D. Hamilton, George C. Williams, and Richard Dawkins argued that natural selection acted primarily at the level of the individual. They argued on the basis of mathematical models that individuals would non altruistically sacrifice fitness for the sake of a group. A consensus emerged that office selection did not occur, including in special situations such(a) as the haplodiploid social insects like honeybees in the Hymenoptera, where kin choice explains the behaviour of non-reproductives equally well, since the only way for them to reproduce their genes is via kin.

In 1994 David Sloan Wilson and Elliott Sober argued for multi-level selection, including companies selection, on the grounds that groups, like individuals, could compete. In 2010 three authors including E. O. Wilson, required for his score on social insects especially ants, again revisited the arguments for group selection. They argued that group selection can arise when competition between two or more groups, some containing altruistic individuals who act cooperatively together, is more important for survival than competition between individuals within used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters group, provoking a strong rebuttal from a large group of ethologists.

Early developments

Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution in his book, Origin of Species. Darwin also made the number one suggestion of group selection in The Descent of Man that the evolution of groups could impact the survival of individuals. He wrote, "If one man in a tribe... invented a new snare or weapon, the tribe would include in number, spread, and supplant other tribes. In a tribe thus rendered more many there would always be a rather better chance of the birth of other superior and inventive members."

Once Darwinism had been accepted in the modern synthesis of the mid-twentieth century, animal behavior was glibly explained with unsubstantiated hypotheses about survival value, which was largely taken for granted. The naturalist Konrad Lorenz had argued broadly in books like On Aggression 1966 that animal behavior patterns were "for the usefulness of the species", without actually studying survival value in the field. Richard Dawkins subject that Lorenz was a "'good of the species' man" so accustomed to group selection thinking that he did not realize his views "contravened orthodox Darwinian theory". The ethologist Niko Tinbergen praised Lorenz for his interest in the survival value of behavior, and naturalists enjoyed Lorenz's writings for the same reason. In 1962, group selection was used as a popular description for adaptation by the zoologist V. C. Wynne-Edwards. In 1976, Richard Dawkins wrote a well-known book on the importance of evolution at the level of the gene or the individual, The Selfish Gene.

From the mid 1960s, evolutionary biologists argued that natural selection acted primarily at the level of the individual. In 1964, John Maynard Smith, C. M. Perrins 1964, and George C. Williams in his 1966 book Adaptation and Natural Selection cast serious doubt on group selection as a major mechanism of evolution; Williams's 1971 book Group Selection assembled writings from many authors on the same theme.

It was at that time broadly agreed that this was the effect even for eusocial insects such as honeybees, which encourages kin selection, since workers are closely related.