From: Francesca S. Alcorn (unicorn@greenepa.net)
Date: Fri 27 Feb 2004 - 19:54:46 GMT
Keith wrote:
>At 08:10 PM 26/02/04 -0500, frankie wrote:
>>Keith wrote:
>>
>>>At 01:08 PM 20/02/04 -0500, frankie wrote:
>>>
>>>snip
>>>
>>>>But in social animals, competition occurs *between groups* as
>>>>well as between individuals. Prides of lions and troops of
>>>>monkeys compete for territory much like individual birds do. And
>>>>in the example of ants, the concept of individuals being the unit
>>>>of selection is a bit of a stretch.
>>>
>>>You really need to read Hamilton who worked out how it works at
>>>the level of shared genes.
>>
>>I'll look into it, but I don't know that it will change my
>>contention - if you have a bunch of genetically identical
>>individuals running around (as in ants) then they are pretty
>>expendable as individual units.
>
>Worker ants are not identical, just related. Because of the odd way
>sex is determined in bees, ants and wasps, ants share 3/4 of their
>genes with sisters rather than the mammal norm of 1/2. Thus from
>the viewpoint of their genes, the genes are better off (more copies
>in future generations) if the worker ants raise sister reproductives
>rather than their own offspring. (Bees share less because of the
>way the mate.) So you won't have to hunt, here is a taste.
I am not unfamiliar with kin-selection, but I don't understand why
this means that considering things at the group-level is invalid.
It is kind of fractal like - patterns recurring across scale.
Thanks for all the URL's. I hadn't heard of the conflict between
Gould and Wilson, both of whom I admire.
frankie
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