teageegeepea comments on What is the group selection debate? - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Academian 02 November 2010 02:02AM

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Comment author: nhamann 02 November 2010 02:22:37AM *  2 points [-]

From the mixture of yes/no and certain/uncertain answers here, you can see how a "debate" could occur if two conversing parties were unwittingy trying to answer two different questions. But now, having calrified what's selected versus what's selected for, and what occurs in reality versus what's fundamental in our model...

...is there anything more to ask?

Well, yes actually. Some of the debate I've seen concerns whether the traditional inclusive fitness framework and a new multilevel selection framework are mathematically equivalent or whether one is more general than the other, the ease and accuracy of modeling associated with both frameworks, and other assorted technical details.

Still, this post is a good dissolution of a lot of confusion present in the debate. Upvoted.

Comment author: teageegeepea 02 November 2010 04:26:41AM 1 point [-]

I don't know too much about the latest in group-selection theory, but I did read a little while back about E. O. Wilson & others critiquing the common view of kin selection from a group-selection standpoint in a paper Dawkins & Coyne did not think highly of.