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David Sloan Wilson

David Sloan Wilson Biography

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“Page 43: Natural selection is a multilevel process that operates among groups in addition to among individuals within groups. Any unit becomes endowed with the properties inherent in the word organism to the degree that it is a unit of selection. The history of life on earth has been marked by many transitions from groups of organisms to groups as organisms. Organismic groups achieve their unity with mechanisms that suppress selection within without themselves being overtly altruistic. Human evolution falls within the paradigm of multilevel selection and the major transitions of life. Moral systems provide many of the mechanisms that enable human groups to function as adaptive units.”

Evolutionary PsychologyGroup Selection
Book:Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society
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“One reason that a truth and reconciliation process is needed for group selection is to return to the simplicity of the original problem and Darwin’s solution. As Ed Wilson and I put it in our recent review article titled “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology“: Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”

ReasonProblemProcessGroupsReturnNeededBeatsSolutionsOriginalsFoundationSimplicitySelfishSelfishnessReviewsArticlesAltruismSelectionReconciliationTheoreticalCommentaryWilsonRethinking
Author:David Sloan Wilson
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