Evolution and Our Inner Conflict
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/evolution-and-our-inner-conflict/
Though the initial focus of the article is discussing the dynamic between selfishness and altruism, what I found most interesting was the idea of group evolution. Reading the wiki page it seems clear that the basic idea is quite controversial, but to me it explains a lot of human behavior very tidily. Effective groups produced more offspring than ineffective groups and groups soon learned to recognize beneficial traits from other groups and made directed selection by encouraging out breeding. I see this sort of selective behavior in higher species like mammals way beyond simply mole rats (and humans). Lots of herd animals have benefits to selectively evolving group traits. Take elephants for example. While males tend to operate largely independently (though based on what I have read the last couple of years, males operate in loose groups as well (not as self-evident as the female dominated tight matriarchal groups) and the lost of patriarchs has resulted in significant problems, not the least of which is the young males are unable to effectively deal with their periods of must), female operate in tight groups that collectively have to deal with complex situations over long term periods (not the least of which is the periodic drought). Those groups that were most effective at operating together would have the most offspring that would reproduce in the next generation, so I can see that altruistic genes would become quickly established in organisms that form groups for long periods, even if that particular gene variant wasn’t particularly beneficial to the individual. Naturally, if altruists never actually spread their own seed, it would make it more challenging for a group to effectively pass that trait along the generations, so I can see a balance being required where the purest form of altruism is incapable of being stable. Conversely, I see the purest form of selfishness as being unstable as well as individuals that fail to contribute to any group could easily be excluded. There has to be a balance between selfishness and altruism and I am sure that the most effective groups had a wide range.
I can envision situations over the long term where during different periods of plenty and privation that the different extremes would have different survival characteristics, but it seems to me that once established, such group evolution would be very difficult to be lost as something would have to trigger the individual to be more successful than the group for long enough that the individuals out breed the groups. Just like highly aggressive individuals are successful in certain environments, I am sure that highly aggressive groups will be successful in certain environments. Thus, there could easily be traits linked to races and cultures that evolved because of different environments.
Personally I don’t see the huge objection to the power of group evolution, it seems like it has better value in predicting human behavior than basing everything off the individual.
