>From a social science perspective and with regard to the hegemony of the
>"competition in natural selection" meme, I've found the following to be
>interesting, in the past.
Keller, Evelyn F. 1992. Secrets of Life, Secrets of Death: Essays on
Language, Gender and Science. New York, NY: Routledge.
Todes, Daniel P. 1989. Darwin without Malthus: The Struggle for Existence in
Russian Evolutionary Thought. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Margulis, Lynn. 1991. "Symbiogenesis and Symbionticism" in Symbiosis as a
Source of Evolutionary Innovation: Speciation and Morphogenesis. Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press.
Cheers,
-
Ashwani
Vasishth [EMAIL PROTECTED] (818) 677-6137
Department of Urban Studies and Planning, ST 206
California State University, Northridge
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~vasishth
At 8:49 PM +0000 2/14/06, isab972 wrote:
>Dear Warren,
>
>Your reasoning on selection is almost correct but there is one important
>flow: natural selection does not act on clans or groups but only on
>individuals. Group selection indeed does not work in nature. In very few
>cases, there might be traits selected under kin-selection, but very very
>few.
>
>You talked about helping the others and cooperative behaviours. Under the
>word "cooperation" there are many different behaviours and in many cases the
>individual advantage is what drives the evolution of "cooperative
>behaviours", not group selection. A simple example: you have an antipredator
>advantage in larger groups through dilution effect and improved detection of
>approaching predators. So, the costs of alerting the group about the
>presence of a nearby predator are small for the caller, the call helps the
>others to escape but the apparent cooperation is driven by selfish
>individual advantage.
>
>Isabella
>
>--
>Isabella Capellini, PhD
>Research Associate
>
>Evolutionary Anthropology Research Group
>Department of Anthropology
>Durham University
>43 Old Elvet
>DH1 3HN
>Durham (UK)
>
>phone: +44 (0)191 3346177
>fax: +44 (0)191 3346101
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
>> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Warren W. Aney
>> Sent: 14 February 2006 20:04
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: current natural selection pressures
>>
>> I may not be the person to raise this discussion to a more
>> rigorous ecological level, but let me try:
>>
>> As I understand one view of natural selection, it is a
>> process that favors those qualities that increase the
>> likelihood of a particular set of genes being passed on to
>> succeeding generations. So we have the obvious, e.g.,
>> selecting for opposable thumbs and bigger brains led to
>> selecting for learning the use of tools (and weapons) which
>> improved that particular clan's survivability -- and the
>> survival of its gene set. It also explains some altruistic
>> behaviors -- taking care of elderly clan members may have
>> cost a little in terms of resource allocation, but that may
>> have been more than offset by their providing services
>> beneficial to the clan's survival.
>> Services such as infant care, child mentoring and the
>> transfer of accrued skills, knowledge and wisdom.
>>
>> It also may have led to learning some other behaviors such as
>> killing the males and enslaving the females of competing
>> clans -- not very altruistic but certainly improving the
>> survival of the victorious clan's gene set.
>>
>> So why do we now seem to be learning behaviors that would
>> appear to work against the survival of the gene set of the
>> "clan" we belong to? Behaviors such as being kind to
>> strangers instead of killing the males and raping the
>> females, sending aid to foreign countries instead of engaging
>> in genocide, promoting birth control instead of large
>> families, honoring monogamy and celibacy instead of
>> promiscuity, protecting and conserving other species instead
> > of eliminating them as competitors or threats, honoring
>> humility instead of belligerence, honoring artists more than
>> soldiers (okay, this may be a bad example since we expend
>> much more of our resources on the military than we do on the arts).
>>
>> It appears, at least to this field ecologist, that we are
>> practicing behaviors aimed at improving the survival of a
>> whole host of competing and maybe even antagonistic gene
>> sets. And most of us (but not all of us) believe that is
>> exactly what we should be doing. Where and how is natural
>> selection at work in all this?
>>
>>
>> Warren Aney
>> Senior Wildlife Ecologist
>> Tigard, Oregon
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
>> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of isabella capellini
>> Sent: Tuesday, 14 February, 2006 08:36
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: current natural selection pressures
>>
>>
>> > > Perhaps human intelligence and humility will become
>> > > > a selective pressure.
>>
>> Really?? How? will more intelligent and humile people have
>> more offspring???
>> Isabella
>>
>>
>> Dr. Isabella Capellini, PhD
>> Research Associate
>>
>> Department of Anthropology
>> Durham University
>> 43 Old Elvet
>> Durham
>> DH1 3HN (UK)
>>
>> phone: +44 (0)191 3346177
>> fax: +44-(0)191-3346101
>> email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> webpage: http://www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/
>>
>>
>>
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