Group Selection Due To Differing ESSs
The problem with group selection is that for a whole group to get a single trait, it must spread through the whole group first by regular evolution. But, as J. L. Mackie suggested, when there are many different groups, each with a different Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS), there is selection between the different ESSs, since some are worse than others. For example, a group where altruism arose would outcompete a group where every creature acted in its own interest (see, for instance, the ESSs created by Koinophilia).
Read more about this topic: Group Selection
Famous quotes containing the words group, selection, due and/or differing:
“There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (18991977)
“It is the highest and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters M.P. written after his name. No selection from the alphabet, no doctorship, no fellowship, be it of ever so learned or royal a society, no knightship,not though it be of the Garter,confers so fair an honour.”
—Anthony Trollope (18151882)
“Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie.”
—Horace Walpole (17171797)
“The spirit of the place is a strange thing. Our mechanical age tries to override it. But it does not succeed. In the end the strange, sinister spirit of the place, so diverse and adverse in differing places, will smash our mechanical oneness into smithereens.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)