Abstract
We often think of science—and of philosophy as well—as a process by which puzzlement is removed. This suggests that progress in a science is to be measured by the degree to which it eliminates problems rather than creating them. We sometimes say of an idea that “it raises more problems than it solves.” The fact that this remark is used to state a criticism perhaps indicates that we think of problems as if they were rashes on the skin of the body scientific. Scientific progress makes rashes go away.
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References
Fisher, R.A. [1930]: The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. New York: Dover, 1958, pp. 49–50.
The dispute about the units of selection has waxed and waned throughout the history of evolutionary theory. Darwin and Wallace disagreed about it. During the forging of the Modern Synthesis, Fisher, R.A., J.B.S. Haldane, (The Causes of Evolution, New York: Cornell University Press, 1932)
S. Wright, (“Tempo and Mode in Evolution: A Critical Review.” Ecology, 1945, 26: 415–419) were each rather skeptical that altruism could evolve,
whereas W. Allee, A. Emerson, L. Park, T. Park and K. Schmidt (Principles of Animal Ecology. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1949)
Wynne-Edwards (Animal Dispersal in Relation to Social Behavior. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1962) took the opposite view.
G.C. Williams (Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966) opposed group selection
Dawkins (The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975) popularized Williams’ position and arguments.
Maynard Smith (“Group Selection.” Quarterly Review of Biology 1976, 51: 277–83) has lined up against group selection;
David Wilson (The Natural Selection of Populations and Communities. Menlo Park: Benjamin/Cummings, 1980)
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See Sober (“What is Evolutionary Altruism?” B. Linsky and M. Matthen (eds.), New Essays on Philosophy and Biology, Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume, 1988, 14: 75–99) for further discussion of the contrasts and connections between the evolutionary concept of altruism and the ordinary language concept.
The fact that altruism is an important test case does not mean that individual and group selection must oppose each other. As I’ll explain shortly, group and individual selection can work in the same direction. And it also is possible to have group selection without any individual selection at all.
I also should mention that some models of group selection allow altruism to evolve even when groups are randomly assembled. See Wilson (“Weak Altruism, Strong Group Selection,” Oikos 59 (1990) 135–40) for discussion.
Sober, E. “Let’s Razor Ockham’s Razor.” D. Knowles (ed.) Explanation and Its Limits. Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference. Cambridge University Press. 1990, 73–94.
Wade, (“A Critical Review of the Models of Group Selection.” Quarterly Review of Biology 1978, 53: 101–14), reviews a number of quantitative models of group selection that claim to establish this sort of thesis;
Wade argues that the models in various ways a priori bias the case against group selection.
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Compare: (i) It is a matter of convention whether we use the words “dogs have four legs” to express a truth rather than a falsehood; (ii) it is a matter of convention whether dogs have four legs. I accept (i) but reject (ii). (i) embodies the idea of “trivial semantic conventionalism.”
Figures 2 and 3, and the idea of using them to illustrate the parallelism of between/within group selection and between/within organism selection, are due to D. Wilson, “Weak Altruism, Strong Group Selection,” Oikos 59 (1990) 135–40) for discussion.
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Of course, the appropriate formulation of this idea is not that (viable and fertile) interspecific hybrids never occur, but just that they are much rarer than viable and fertile offspring of within-species reproduction.
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Sober, E. (1991). Organisms, Individuals, and Units of Selection. In: Tauber, A.I. (eds) Organism and the Origins of Self. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 129. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3406-4_13
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