{"id":23421,"date":"2021-01-14T00:35:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T04:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=23421"},"modified":"2021-01-15T16:39:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-15T20:39:41","slug":"group-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/group-selection\/","title":{"rendered":"Group Selection: Groups Survive or Die Together"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/group-selection-2\/\">group selection<\/a>? Is it the same as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/natural-selection-in-evolution\/\">natural selection<\/a> or is it a unique concept?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Group selection is a type of natural selection that applies to groups. Individuals may be altruistic towards one another, but it is for the good of a group of animals surviving and passing on their genes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about group selection and what it looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Selfishness, Altruism, and Group Selection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While the driving force behind biology may be genes attempting to replicate, in modern times many must do so through the behaviors of their hosts. <em>Behavior <\/em>is how scientists describe specific actions that creatures take. A behavior is something quick and definite, so only animals can really be said to have them\u2014some plants do move, but not in a fast or purposeful way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Selfish behaviors in nature are easy to explain: Animals would naturally be expected to behave in ways that benefit themselves at the expense of others, given that the purpose of life is to survive and reproduce. However, altruistic behavior\u2014helping others at a cost to oneself\u2014seems counterintuitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One possible explanation for altruistic behavior is <em>group selection<\/em>: the idea that natural selection acts on groups of creatures, rather than on the individual level. While the commonly accepted theory today is that individuals compete for the ability to reproduce, group selection says that animals will instinctively act for the good of their local population, or even their entire species. If true, it would make altruistic behavior very easy to explain; risking oneself to help others of one\u2019s species would then be the default, not the exception.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, group selection is a fatally flawed theory. There are many ways to rebut it, but the simplest is to recognize that a population of altruistic individuals can be easily exploited by a selfish one. The selfish individual will accept all the help that other members of the population offer, while taking on no risks or costs to itself. Therefore, a selfish individual in an altruistic population will inevitably be more successful than the average creature in that population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That selfish creature would quickly spread its genes\u2014and therefore its selfishness\u2014until a large portion of the population turns selfish. In other words, <strong>the individual will succeed at the expense of the group, and therefore group selection can\u2019t be true.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Group Altruism and the Evolution of Culture<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Many types of animals move, or even live, together in groups. Some advantages of this are obvious. For example, prey animals gain some protection from predators by living in groups. Meanwhile, predators like hyenas can bring down much larger prey by working together, so it benefits them all even though they have to share the food.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another example is birds, many of which fly in formation and switch leaders frequently to reduce turbulence and make travel less tiring. However, birds have also been observed giving alarm calls to warn of predators, at some risk to themselves. <strong>This apparent act of altruism may ultimately be an act of selfishness<\/strong><strong>\u2014in fact, considering the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/selfish-gene-theory\/\">selfish gene theory<\/a>, it <\/strong><strong><em>must <\/em><\/strong><strong>be.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the simple truth of natural selection, we can infer that giving that alarm call is more beneficial to the individual\u2019s genes than not giving it would be. There are any number of possible reasons for this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For instance, if a bird simply flew away upon spotting a predator, it would lose the advantages of living in a flock. If it froze and hid, but the rest of the flock kept moving around and making noise, that would draw the predator closer to the individual anyway. Therefore, it would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/melania-trumps-be-best\/\">be best<\/a> to call a quick warning so the entire flock can hide. Also, there\u2019s the simple likelihood that by taking a small risk to itself, the individual giving the call can protect many of its relatives. Finally, we can infer that if one of these birds calls to warn the others, that kindness will be repaid later by the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is one form of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/reciprocal-altruism\/\">reciprocal altruism<\/a><\/em>: Two or more animals showing each other mutual altruism. Another common example is communal grooming. This example is especially interesting because there is a delay between one act of altruism and the act being repaid\u2014pulling a harmful parasite off another individual doesn\u2019t help you until you have a parasite to be pulled yourself.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cost of grooming another member of the population is minuscule, but it\u2019s still greater than zero. Therefore, among species that participate in communal grooming, there must be greater benefit than cost for doing so. One possible explanation is that members of the population evolved the ability to hold a \u201cgrudge\u201d; that is, they refuse to groom selfish individuals who don\u2019t groom others. This would naturally drive down the number of selfish individuals as they fall victim to parasites.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ideas Spread Like Genes<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly, ideas and behaviors can be observed to spread through populations and evolve much like genes do. Certain songbirds, for example, are known to learn their songs by imitating birds around them, rather than having them coded in by genes. However, sometimes birds will make a mistake and give rise to a new song. That song, in turn, is picked up by others and spreads throughout the population. <strong>If the replicator unit of biology is the gene, then the replicator unit of ideas could be called the <\/strong><strong><em>meme<\/em><\/strong>\u2014from the Greek mimema, meaning \u201cthat which is imitated.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among humans, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/spread-ideas\/\">spread of ideas<\/a> is more pronounced and much easier to recognize.<strong> A catchy song is a type of meme, as is a popular slogan or a political stance.<\/strong> God is one of the most successful memes in all of history\u2014while it\u2019s not clear how the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-your-image-of-god\/\">idea of God<\/a> originated in the \u201cmeme pool,\u201d so to speak, it has been spread by stories, songs, art, and rituals to nearly every part of the world for thousands of years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Culture and memes don\u2019t seem to have any inherent survival value. It\u2019s more likely that they\u2019re side effects of group-focused evolutionary traits such as those discussed at the beginning of this section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is group selection? Is it the same as natural selection or is it a unique concept? Group selection is a type of natural selection that applies to groups. Individuals may be altruistic towards one another, but it is for the good of a group of animals surviving and passing on their genes. Read more about group selection and what it looks like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,160,24],"tags":[187],"class_list":["post-23421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-science","category-society","tag-the-selfish-gene","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Group Selection: Groups Survive or Die Together - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Group selection is the idea that natural selection acts on groups of creatures, rather than on the individual level. 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