I don't know if too many people would have much trouble with the sort of thing you describe. However, what I see as somewhat insidious is the repackaging of the old discredited Wynne-Edwards arguments with concepts of "memes", which I guess started with Dawkins' Extended Phenotype to produce really wooly ideas about "cultural evolution" whereby "memes" replace genes as the units of selection.
This gets us into the notion that certain "good memes" are "right" and should be promoted, and "bad memes" are "wrong" and should be expunged. While one can take certain rhetorical high roads here, the idea that someone is supposed to decide which ideas are "good" and which are "bad" is rather chilling. While we have had eugenics movements in the past, we have also had "applications" of the ideas of "cultural evolution" in places like Cambodia and China, and quite frankly, they don't look too appealing to me. There is, of course, no data to support the memes evolution idea, and lots of data to support the idea of the evolution of human behaviors by natural selection (of course you can't ever PROVE anything). IMHO, the cultural evolution types use the same tactics as creationists when they present their arguments. It is really odd for me to see someone like Sober debunking creationist style arguments in one part of a recent book on the philosophy of science, while using the same sort of rhetoric creationists use to promote the idea of cultural evolution in another part of the book. Rob Hamilton "So easy it seemed once found, which yet unfound most would have thought impossible" John Milton ________________________________________ Robert G. Hamilton Department of Biological Sciences Mississippi College P.O. Box 4045 200 South Capitol Street Clinton, MS 39058 Phone: (601) 925-3872 FAX (601) 925-3978 >>> Bill Silvert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2/14/2006 5:35 PM >>> I've seen lengthy arguments about group selection, most of which border on the religious. I really don't understand why it is such an outrageous idea. Consider chemical defenses which presumably evolve randomly and persist if they enhance fitness. If a chemical makes an organism smell bad, then it is clearly a case of individual selection. But suppose that the chemical is a poison so that the predators can eat the organisms, but then they die. Predators that like that kind of prey will be selected against, and although the toxic individuals get consumed, after a while the group's survival is enhanced. Is this so outlandish? There are after all lots of living organsims out there which are edible but toxic. Bill Silvert ----- Original Message ----- From: "isab972" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 8:49 PM Subject: Re: current natural selection pressures > Your reasoning on selection is almost correct but there is one important > flow: natural selection does not act on clans or groups but only on > individuals. Group selection indeed does not work in nature. In very few > cases, there might be traits selected under kin-selection, but very very > few. ------------------------------------------------------------ This message has been scanned by GWGuardian on GWGuardian.mc.edu and found to be virus free. ------------------------------------------------------------
