(Fwd) Commentary: Goodbye Selfish Gene: A New Upheaval in the
Dan Agin
Behavior
by Dan Agin
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.
Of course, calling a gene, a snip of biochemistry, "selfish" is
rank anthropomorphic metaphor and sloganeering. But both the
media and the public adore slogans, and this particular slogan
quickly became a "meme", an element of cultural "memory" itself
subject to cultural "selection" rules.
Whether selected and acting singly or as cooperative units, genes
are biochemical entities without politics. The politics of the
gene, especially of the "selfish" gene, has been man-made and
unfortunate.
Slogan or meme or whatever, the selfish-gene sociobiology model
in the evolutionary analysis of human behavior persisted for
nearly half a century, a dogma both insistent and pervasive.
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.
For those interested in the science, two important papers, now in
press, will appear soon: 1) David Sloan Wilson and Edward O.
Wilson: Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology.
The Quarterly Review of Biology, 2007 82(4):327. 2) David Sloan
Wilson, Mark Van Vugt, and Rick O'Gorman: Multilevel Selection
Theory and Major Evolutionary Transitions: Implications for
Psychological Science. Current Directions in Psychological
Science (in press).
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..."
According to this new revision kin-selection is no longer a
counterargument to group selection, and as the Wilsons say,
"relatedness is no longer considered the decisive factor in the
evolution of eusociality."
That's a tremendous revision of the gospel of the 1960s and
1970s, and one hopes there's enough media attention to it to
bring full public awareness of what it all means for our approach
to human evolution and the evolution of human behavior.
The immediate consequence is that the "selfishness" of genes is
no longer the exclusive public model for the genetic origins of
human behavior. It remains a stretch to call "selfish" those
genes that produce traits (e.g., altruism) that in turn produce
sacrificial destruction of the vehicles of those genes when the
sacrifice occurs to improve the survivability of the group in
group selection (not kin selection). The supremacy of the selfish
gene model has ended. That doesn't mean the idea is totally
useless -- it means only that the selfish-gene idea no longer
rules in evolutionary analysis. Goodby to the "selfish" gene as
an exclusive explanation, especially as an explanation of human
behavior.
Some people insist Dawkins was never political about his model.
That's not true. Here are two quotes from the book, The Selfish
Gene:
"Humans and baboons have evolved by natural selection. If you
look at the way natural selection works, it seems to follow that
anything that has evolved by natural selection should be selfish.
Therefore we must expect that when we go and look at the behavior
of baboons, humans, and all other living creatures, we shall find
it to be selfish." (p.4)
"The gene is the basic unit of selfishness." (p.36)
One could go on. I don't think it makes sense to say there's
nothing political in the book, since the evidence is the
opposite. Of course, in the edition of 1989 Dawkins was already
qualifying in "Endnotes" what he said in 1976, but the damage was
done, conservatives in the UK and US dancing in the streets from
1976 on.
Biologists may have understood the qualifying subtleties, but the
media and the public did not. We can hope that now that the
father of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson, calls for a revision of
thinking, the media and the public will take heed.
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.
Nature doesn't care how humans categorize reality, how they label
things, whether humans call genes "selfish" or not selfish,
whether they look at the evolution of life on Earth as involving
only individual selection or also group selection.
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.
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