Dawkin's disagreed:

in article [email hidden], Peter F. at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/27/04 8:43 AM:

Quoted message said:

LETTERS TO NEWSLINE

Quoted message said:

From Richard Dawkins:

As usual, I read your Newsline with pleasure. The appended
letter to the Independent, however, is rubbish. It is not
true to say that "evolution by natural selection is not
simply about survival of the fittest individuals but also
about the survival of the fittest groups of individuals".

Don't you love it when someone with a particularly narrow
point of view, and one that is opposed by a substantial
fraction of the scientific community at large, appoints
themselves as the arbiter of "truth" for the general public.

Guy

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Peter F.
at [email hidden] wrote on 4/27/04
8:43 AM:

Quoted message said:

LETTERS TO NEWSLINE

Quoted message said:

From Richard Dawkins:

As usual, I read your Newsline with pleasure. The appended
letter to the Independent, however, is rubbish. It is not
true to say that "evolution by natural selection is not
simply about survival of the fittest individuals but also
about the survival of the fittest groups of individuals".

Don't you love it when someone with a particularly
narrow point of view, and one that is opposed by a
substantial fraction of the scientific community at
large, appoints themselves as the arbiter of "truth" for
the general public.

He's right - in the sense that one should really add
survival of the fittest genes, and species etc. etc, rather
than implying that selection only occurs at the individual
and group levels.

Personally, I wish we'd get beyond these disputes. The
theory was developed in the 70s, and there are a few systems
in which group selection seems to operate. Why don't we just
use group selection when we need to, don't when we don't,
and get on with more interesting things. This whole argument
is like discussing whether Luxembourg exists. It does, but
it can be safely ignored most of the time.

Bob

I hope any Luxembourgers will accept the spirit of my
comments - I appreciate that they would have difficulty
ignoring their nation.

--
Bob O'Hara

Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5) FIN-00014 University of
Helsinki Finland Telephone: +358-9-191 23743 Mobile:
+358 50 599 0540 Fax: +358-9-191 22 779 WWW:
rni.helsinki.fi~bohOpen ↗ Journal of Negative
Results - EEB: jnr-eeb.orgjnr-eeb.orgOpen ↗

"Guy Hoelzer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

in article [email hidden], Peter F.
at [email hidden] wrote on 4/27/04
8:43 AM:

Quoted message said:

LETTERS TO NEWSLINE

Quoted message said:

From Richard Dawkins:

As usual, I read your Newsline with pleasure. The
appended letter to the Independent, however, is rubbish.
It is not true to say that "evolution

by

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

natural selection is not simply about survival of the
fittest

individuals

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

but also about the survival of the fittest groups of
individuals".

Don't you love it when someone with a particularly narrow
point of view,

and

Quoted message said:

one that is opposed by a substantial fraction of the
scientific community

at

Quoted message said:

large, appoints themselves as the arbiter of "truth" for
the general

public.

I admit I did experience a minor reflux reflex and a souring
of my pEPTic juices when I read it.

P

in article [email hidden], Anon. at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/28/04 10:31 AM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Peter F.
at [email hidden] wrote on 4/27/04
8:43 AM:

Quoted message said:

LETTERS TO NEWSLINE

> From Richard Dawkins:

As usual, I read your Newsline with pleasure. The
appended letter to the Independent, however, is rubbish.
It is not true to say that "evolution by natural
selection is not simply about survival of the fittest
individuals but also about the survival of the fittest
groups of individuals".

Don't you love it when someone with a particularly narrow
point of view, and one that is opposed by a substantial
fraction of the scientific community at large, appoints
themselves as the arbiter of "truth" for the general
public.

He's right - in the sense that one should really add
survival of the fittest genes, and species etc. etc,
rather than implying that selection only occurs at the
individual and group levels.

I read the quote above in exactly the opposite way. I think
he is claiming that the notion of group selection is
"rubish," which would eliminate the possibility of
selection at the species level. He did not mention
selection at the gene level, although we know his position
on that pretty well.

Quoted message said:

Personally, I wish we'd get beyond these disputes.

Point well taken.

Quoted message said:

The theory was developed in the 70s, and there are a few
systems in which group selection seems to operate. Why
don't we just use group selection when we need to, don't
when we don't, and get on with more interesting things.

Why don't we ignore selection at the individual level when
it is safe to do so, instead?

Well, that is a side issue. Keeping on topic, Dawkins argued
that you CANNOT EVER raise the specter of group selection
without abandoning realism. That is what I objected to.

Guy

"Guy Hoelzer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

I read the quote above in exactly the opposite way. I
think he is claiming that the notion of group selection is
"rubish," which would eliminate the possibility of
selection at the species level. He did not mention
selection at the gene level, although we know his position
on that pretty well.

You've got to remember that Dawkins is addressing an
audience of non-biologists here. It's a common
misconception that, for example, predators exist to cull
weak members of the herd "for the good of the species", or
that animals never kill members of the same species and all
live in harmony.

There are some limited examples where group selection can
work, for example a species of wasp where small colonies are
formed, which then fight with each other. A selfish wasp
will reduce the fighting strength of her colony and thus
damage her own fitness.

Anon. <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

[email hidden] wrote on 4/27/04
8:43 AM:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>From Richard Dawkins:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

As usual, I read your Newsline with pleasure. The
appended letter to the Independent, however, is rubbish.
It is not true to say that "evolution by natural
selection is not simply about survival of the fittest
individuals but also about the survival of the fittest
groups of individuals".

Don't you love it when someone with a particularly
narrow point of view, and one that is opposed by a
substantial fraction of the scientific community at
large, appoints themselves as the arbiter of "truth" for
the general public.

He's right - in the sense that one should really add
survival of the fittest genes, and species etc. etc,
rather than implying that selection only occurs at the
individual and group levels.

That's not what he was saying, though.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Anon. at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/28/04
10:31 AM:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The theory was developed in the 70s, and there are a few
systems in which group selection seems to operate. Why
don't we just use group selection when we need to, don't
when we don't, and get on with more interesting things.

Why don't we ignore selection at the individual level when
it is safe to do so, instead?

Yeah, why not? Of course, defining "safe" might be a bit
controversial.

Quoted message said:

Well, that is a side issue. Keeping on topic, Dawkins
argued that you CANNOT EVER raise the specter of group
selection without abandoning realism. That is what I
objected to.

There is a slight problem that "group selection" can mean
different things. The earlier meaning, the "for the good of
the species" idea deserves to be squashed. Unfortunately,
the "trait group selection" idea gets caught up in the cross-
fire. It doesn't help that some proponents of trait group
selection seem to want to blur this distinction.

Bob

--
Bob O'Hara

Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5) FIN-00014 University of
Helsinki Finland Telephone: +358-9-191 23743 Mobile:
+358 50 599 0540 Fax: +358-9-191 22 779 WWW:
rni.helsinki.fi~bohOpen ↗ Journal of Negative
Results - EEB: jnr-eeb.orgjnr-eeb.orgOpen ↗

Malcolm <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Regarding:

``It is not true to say that "evolution by natural selection
is not simply about survival of the fittest individuals but
also about the survival of the fittest groups of
individuals".''

Quoted message said:

You've got to remember that Dawkins is addressing an
audience of non-biologists here. It's a common
misconception that, for example, predators exist to cull
weak members of the herd "for the good of the species", or
that animals never kill members of the same species and
all live in harmony.

Dumbing things down to the point where they are incorrect is
a rather unsuitable job for the professor of the public
understanding of science.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

in article [email hidden], Malcolm at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/28/04 9:47 PM:

Quoted message said:

"Guy Hoelzer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

I read the quote above in exactly the opposite way. I
think he is claiming that the notion of group selection
is "rubish," which would eliminate the possibility of
selection at the species level. He did not mention
selection at the gene level, although we know his
position on that pretty well.

You've got to remember that Dawkins is addressing an
audience of non-biologists here. It's a common
misconception that, for example, predators exist to cull
weak members of the herd "for the good of the species", or
that animals never kill members of the same species and
all live in harmony.

While I appreciate the difficulty in communicating science
to the general public, I cannot condone the use of gross
misstatements for the sake of simplicity. Dawkins should not
have used words like "rubish" and "not true" as rhetorical
tricks to cover ambiguities. It also seems to me that this
quote reads just like the things Dawkins to his scientific
colleagues.

Quoted message said:

There are some limited examples where group selection can
work, for example a species of wasp where small colonies
are formed, which then fight with each other. A selfish
wasp will reduce the fighting strength of her colony and
thus damage her own fitness.

I don't think we have a clue as to how limited or unlimited
group selection might be. Why do you think it has such a
limited scope?

Guy

Quoted message said:

GH:- I read the quote above in exactly the opposite way. I
think he is claiming that the notion of group selection is
"rubish," which would eliminate the possibility of
selection at the species level. He did not mention
selection at the gene level, although we know his position
on that pretty well.

M:- You've got to remember that Dawkins is addressing an
audience of non-biologists here. It's a common
misconception that, for example, predators exist to cull
weak members of the herd "for the good of the species", or
that animals never kill members of the same species and
all live in harmony.

JE:- It is always easier to suggest altruistic as in "for
the good of the species arguments" than mutualistic
arguments, i.e. for the mutualised fitness benefit of a
group of Darwinian individuals because:-

1) Altruism is automatically regarded as a superior ethic.
2) Mutualised arguments are much more intellectually
challenging.

M:- There are some limited examples where group selection
can work, for example a species of wasp where small
colonies are formed, which then fight with each other. A
selfish wasp will reduce the fighting strength of her
colony and thus damage her own fitness.

JE:- Please explain how your example of a "selfish" wasp
which "will reduce the fighting strength of her colony and
thus damage her own fitness" can be selected as a selfish
act? In exactly what way is such a wasp being selfish when
she _damages_ "her own fitness"?

Regards,

John Edser Independent Researcher Posting from Edinburgh UK

PO Box 266 Church Pt NSW 2105 Australia

[email hidden]

Tim Tyler said:

Malcolm <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Regarding:

``It is not true to say that "evolution by natural
selection is not simply about survival of the fittest
individuals but also about the survival of the fittest
groups of individuals".''

Quoted message said:

You've got to remember that Dawkins is addressing an
audience of non-biologists here. It's a common
misconception that, for example, predators exist to cull
weak members of the herd "for the good of the species",
or that animals never kill members of the same species
and all live in harmony.

Dumbing things down to the point where they are incorrect
is a rather unsuitable job for the professor of the public
understanding of science.

That's right. That's why we have secondary school
biology teachers.
--
John Wilkins [email hidden]
wilkins.id.auwilkins.id.auOpen ↗ "Men mark it when they hit, but do
not mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon

"John Edser" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

There are some limited examples where group selection can
work, for

example

Quoted message said:

a species of wasp where small colonies are formed, which
then fight with each other. A selfish wasp will reduce the
fighting strength of her colony and thus damage her own
fitness.

JE:- Please explain how your example of a "selfish" wasp
which "will reduce the fighting strength of her colony and
thus damage her own fitness" can be selected as a selfish
act? In exactly what way is such a wasp being selfish when
she _damages_ "her own fitness"?

You legitimately 'lost patience' with and fairly poignantly
point out the flaw with this case of confused evolution-
theoretical logic (and ditto manner of concepts being used).

But you ought to start trying to sort out the problem you
yourself have, which is to inappropriately and confusedly
apply your own logic in a way that blocks rather than opens
up new insights from a perspective of

reproducing multicellular organisms_.

The way this is manifest is that you you 'theoretically
treat' all immature such individual offspring as if they
were wasps of a wasp colony (or any equivalent example of
eusocial organisms).

[Aside from your marginally unique genotype, all
conditioning influences prior to the emergence of Edserian
logic, and the possibility that (during your ontogeny and
development) some pattern of psychological peculiarity
entirely randomly resulted:

Thinking the way you do, in this respect, leaves you with no
room to accEPT an appropriate and powerfully revealing
"individual, people, and selection pressure, centered"
analytical approach - one that in an encompassing and
unifying _complementary_ way explain not only how especially
we ourselves _evolved_ to be how we are, but also _what
motivates_ people to think feel and act the ways we do.]

Happy touring, P

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

in article [email hidden], Peter F.
at [email hidden] wrote on 4/27/04
8:43 AM:

Quoted message said:

LETTERS TO NEWSLINE

Quoted message said:

From Richard Dawkins:

As usual, I read your Newsline with pleasure. The
appended letter to the Independent, however, is rubbish.
It is not true to say that "evolution by natural
selection is not simply about survival of the fittest
individuals but also about the survival of the fittest
groups of individuals".

Don't you love it when someone with a particularly
narrow point of view, and one that is opposed by a
substantial fraction of the scientific community at
large, appoints themselves as the arbiter of "truth" for
the general public.

Guy

Is this some kind of Dawkins bashing thread? Nobody so far
has called into question the correctness of the initial
contribution, I guess. Dawkins agreed in print that there is
a hierarchy of vehicle and that groups can of course be
vehicles (that is, one sort of unit of selection). But he
also said that replicators are not any one level in this
hierarchy of vehicles. Whatever the vehicle, the replicators
are allways genes (unless you count memes in). Now how does
this rather comlex conception fit to the simplistic
ostensible quote above? I guess we'd need the "appended
letter to the independent" also, in order to decide what
Dawkins said or wrote, if he did in the first place.

in article [email hidden], Anon. at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/29/04 4:25 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Anon. at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/28/04
10:31 AM:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The theory was developed in the 70s, and there are a few
systems in which group selection seems to operate. Why
don't we just use group selection when we need to, don't
when we don't, and get on with more interesting things.

Why don't we ignore selection at the individual level
when it is safe to do so, instead?

Yeah, why not? Of course, defining "safe" might be a bit
controversial.

Quoted message said:

Well, that is a side issue. Keeping on topic, Dawkins
argued that you CANNOT EVER raise the specter of group
selection without abandoning realism. That is what I
objected to.

There is a slight problem that "group selection" can mean
different things. The earlier meaning, the "for the good
of the species" idea deserves to be squashed.

I'm not so sure. That phrase carried a great deal of socio-
political baggage in the mid-twentieth century that
definitely had to go. However, if we can dump the baggage
this phrase might not be unreasonable. If you would be
comfortable saying that adaptations forged by selection at
the individual level are there "for the good of the
individual", then what is so objectionable about saying that
adaptations forged by selection at the level of the group
are there "for the good of the species"?

Quoted message said:

Unfortunately, the "trait group selection" idea gets
caught up in the cross-fire. It doesn't help that some
proponents of trait group selection seem to want to blur
this distinction.

Could it be a distinction without a difference?

Guy

Anon. <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

There is a slight problem that "group selection" can mean
different things. The earlier meaning, the "for the good
of the species" idea deserves to be squashed.
Unfortunately, the "trait group selection" idea gets
caught up in the cross-fire.

"For the good of the species" probably has better
foundations than "for the good of the group".

At least species don't suffer from having their separate
identities

The remaining problems with "for the good of the
species" are:

* the slow rate of species reproduction;
* the charge that things that are for the good of the
species are also (mostly) for the good of the individual -
and that therefore species selection offers little
explanatory power over individual selection.

These are not fatal problems. Slow species reproduction
rates might result in "for the good of the species"
explanations /rarely/ being applicable - but should not
result in their complete dismissal.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Anon. at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/29/04
4:25 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Anon. at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/28/04
10:31 AM:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

>The theory was developed in the 70s, and there are a few
>systems in which group selection seems to operate. Why
>don't we just use group selection when we need to, don't
>when we don't, and get on with more interesting things.

Why don't we ignore selection at the individual level
when it is safe to do so, instead?

Yeah, why not? Of course, defining "safe" might be a bit
controversial.

Quoted message said:

Well, that is a side issue. Keeping on topic, Dawkins
argued that you CANNOT EVER raise the specter of group
selection without abandoning realism. That is what I
objected to.

There is a slight problem that "group selection" can mean
different things. The earlier meaning, the "for the good
of the species" idea deserves to be squashed.

I'm not so sure. That phrase carried a great deal of socio-
political baggage in the mid-twentieth century that
definitely had to go. However, if we can dump the baggage
this phrase might not be unreasonable. If you would be
comfortable saying that adaptations forged by selection at
the individual level are there "for the good of the
individual", then what is so objectionable about saying
that adaptations forged by selection at the level of the
group are there "for the good of the species"?

Simply because all the baggage is still there. If it was
generally understood that making such a statement implied a
lot of theoretical baggage (the Prce equations etc.), then
that would be fine. The problem is that not everybody is
aware of this, so we end up having to repeatedly explain the
concept of multiple levels of selection.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Unfortunately, the "trait group selection" idea gets
caught up in the cross-fire. It doesn't help that some
proponents of trait group selection seem to want to blur
this distinction.

Could it be a distinction without a difference?

No - the conditions for trait groups selection are specific,
and often rather severe. The original verwion of group
selection didn't even consider the interplay between
different levels of selection.

Bob

--
Bob O'Hara

Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5) FIN-00014 University of
Helsinki Finland Telephone: +358-9-191 23743 Mobile:
+358 50 599 0540 Fax: +358-9-191 22 779 WWW:
rni.helsinki.fi~bohOpen ↗ Journal of Negative
Results - EEB: jnr-eeb.orgjnr-eeb.orgOpen ↗

"John Edser" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Please explain how your example of a "selfish" wasp which
"will reduce the fighting strength of her colony and thus
damage her own fitness" can be selected as a selfish act?
In exactly what way is such a wasp being selfish when she
_damages_ "her own fitness"?

The wasp gains a temporary advantage by reducing her
foraging and freeloading on everyone else. However when
crunch time comes and the colonies come to fight she will
wind up in a weaker colony, and this disadvantage outweighs
the advantage of not foraging. Thus freeloader genes, which
we would normally expect to spread, in this case do not, and
you have group selection.

Joachim Dagg <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Is this some kind of Dawkins bashing thread? Nobody so far
has called into question the correctness of the initial
contribution, I guess.

secularism.org.uk35Open ↗ could
indeed be a forgery.

If so, perhaps one day we will see an official denial ;-)
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

[email hidden] (Joachim Dagg) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

in article [email hidden], Peter F.
at [email hidden] wrote on 4/27/04
8:43 AM:

Quoted message said:

LETTERS TO NEWSLINE

> From Richard Dawkins:

As usual, I read your Newsline with pleasure. The
appended letter to the Independent, however, is
rubbish. It is not true to say that "evolution by
natural selection is not simply about survival of the
fittest individuals but also about the survival of the
fittest groups of individuals".

Don't you love it when someone with a particularly
narrow point of view, and one that is opposed by a
substantial fraction of the scientific community at
large, appoints themselves as the arbiter of "truth" for
the general public.

Guy

Is this some kind of Dawkins bashing thread? Nobody so
far has called into question the correctness of the
initial contribution, I guess. Dawkins agreed in print
that there is a hierarchy of vehicle and that groups can
of course be vehicles (that is, one sort of unit of
selection). But he also said that replicators are not any
one level in this hierarchy of vehicles. Whatever the
vehicle, the replicators are allways genes (unless you
count memes in). Now how does this rather comlex
conception fit to the simplistic ostensible quote above?
I guess we'd need the "appended letter to the
independent" also, in order to decide what Dawkins said
or wrote, if he did in the first place.

(Shame on you, Peter, for omitting this info ;-) Here is a
link to what Dawkins wrote:
secularism.org.uk35Open ↗ and here is
a link to what he was responding to:
secularism.org.uk35Open ↗ and here is
the text he was responding to:
--------
From Dr Daniel Emlyn-Jones to the Independent:

categorically, yes, they do. The next question is why such
behaviour should evolve when at first glance it might seem
so unproductive.

"I'm a molecular biologist rather than an evolutionary
biologist but I do know that evolution by natural selection
is not simply about survival of the fittest individuals but
also about the survival

in a group actually confer a survival advantage to that
group and have therefore been selected by evolution.
For example, non-reproductive individuals may have more
time for communal activities, such as making weapons.
Just a thought."
--------
My initial reaction was to agree with Dawkins that this is
rubbish. But then I noticed that Dr. Emlyn-Jones is
hypothesizing that only a "few" weapon makers are needed.
(Gay eye for the straight spear?)

Assume that spear making is a recessive trait and that spear
makers have zero fitness. Still, if it is useful to your non-spear-
making descendents that a few of your descendents be spear
makers, then it might be advantageous to be heterozygous for
spear making. Or, if this genetic model produces too many
spears, then add additional loci. I'm not sure whether this
mechanism is a variant of kin selection or of group
selection, or whether it is a new idea. It may turn out to
be rubbish, but it is certainly not obvious rubbish.
Frequency dependent selection is full of surprises.