Great to see the selfish gene being exposed to a bit of scrutiny in this New Scientist article. Biological organisms are, according to the selfish gene hypothesis, supposed to be concerned only with the individual’s survival. That way, the genes within that individual are, effectively, immortal.
Alternatives, such as group selection, where behaviours and traits offer benefits to the group rather than the individual, are anathema to most biologists. Richard Dawkins once called the idea “sheer, wanton, head-in-a-bag perversity.” But that’s exactly the kind of attitude that ought to ring alarm bells: history tells us that when scientists close their eyes to a possibility, however remote, they can end up missing something profound. In 13 Things, I suggest that the mysteries surrounding sex and death might be resolved with the rehabilitation of group selection as a valid research area.
It’s interesting to read in the article that “the proponents of group selection agree that only a few potential examples have been identified so far, such as the small size of some annual plants that grow together and reduced virulence in some parasites (to keep their hosts alive).”
A lot of that may be to do with the fact that only the brave, the foolish or the tenured can research group selection. The risks to your career are just too high.
As a result, challenges to the selfish gene are by no means convincing yet. But at least they’re coming out of the cold:
It is still too early to know whether group, species and ecosystem-level selection are major evolutionary forces or merely minor curiosities - baroque ornaments on the central edifice of individual or gene-level selection. But the dominance of the "selfish gene" in evolutionary thought is facing its strongest challenge in many years.
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