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Origin of Group Identity

Viruses, Addiction and Cooperation

  • Book
  • © 2009

Overview

Authors:
  1. Luis P. Villarreal
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  • Luis Villarreal is one of the most respected virologists in the country - if not the world; he is a true leader in the field

  • First volume to trace the evolution of biological identity systems from simple unicellular life forms, through the “tree of life” all the way to complex hominid social structures

  • Will also evaluate the role of genetic parasites in the origination of 'addiction' based molecular strategies

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxiv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. An Overview: Identity from Bacteria to Belief

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 1-26

  3. The Prokaryotes: Virus, Hyperparasites and the Origin of Group Identity

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 27-100

  4. Sensory Systems (Light, Odor, Pheromones) in Communities of Oceanic Microbes

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 101-127

  5. Subjugation of the Individual; Prokaryotic Group Living – Blooms, Slime and Mats

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 129-163

  6. Animal Group Identity: From Slime to Worms, Emergence of the Brain

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 165-254

  7. Group Identity in Aquatic Animals: Learning to Belong

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 255-323

  8. Development of Tetrapod Group Identity, the Smell of Self

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 325-438

  9. Origin of Primate Group Identity: Vision and the Great ERV Invasion

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 439-507

  10. Human Group Identity: Language and a Social Mind

    • Luis P. Villarreal
    Pages 509-597

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 599-614
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Keywords

About this book

A sense of belonging is basic to the human experience. But in this, humans are not unique. Essentially all life, from bacteria to humans, have ways by which it determines which members belong and which do not. This is a basic cooperative nature of life I call group membership which is examined in this book. However, cooperation of living things is not easily accounted for by current theory of evolutionary biology and yet even viruses display group membership. That viruses have this feature would likely seem coincidental or irrelevant to most scientist as having any possible relationship to human group identity. Surely such simple molecular-based relationships between viruses are unrelated to the complex cognitive and emotional nature of human group membership. Yet viruses clearly affect bacterial group membership, which are the most diverse and abundant cellular life form on Earth and from which all life has evolved. Viruses are the most ancient, numerous and adaptable biological entities we know. And we have long recognized them for the harm and disease they can cause, and they have been responsible for the greatest numbers of human deaths. However, with the sequencing of entire genomes and more recently with the shotgun sequencings of habitats, we have come to realize viruses are the black hole of biology; a giant force that has until recently been largely unseen and historically ignored by evolutionary biology. Viruses not only can cause acute disease, but also persist as stable unseen agents in their host.

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