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AndyCossyleon comments on What is the group selection debate? - Less Wrong
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"Group" selection is fundamentally different when the genetic or reproductive prospects of that group lie in a small subset of itself. Any two members* of a "group" like a gaggle** of geese can reproduce together, and even create a new group. HOWEVER, any two members of a "group" like a body or ant community cannot reproduce together and create a new group.
In the latter group, what is good for the gonads or good for the queen is good for group. In the former, that is absolutely not the case: every goose is an independent quonad. All the eggs are not in one basket and therefore natural selection, being the satisficer that it is (and not the optimizer) has no special object to take care of. Put all the eggs in one basket and what you get (aside from an ovary) is something that natural selection has preeminent power over. It cannot take care of the gaggle, only the goose.
Basically: you cannot generalize from cancer. Group selection in the gaggle sense has some merit, but that is all.
*Proviso: opposite sex
**flock
You did not make any sense to me. What is the difference between ant colonies and geese gaggles that you care about? Why is this difference important to understanding group selection?
I think the relevant difference is that all geese in a gaggle are free to try to reproduce with other geese; this is not true of ants. That's as far as I got in that comment, though.
And the reason that difference is important is that a sterile ant has no other interests other than the good of the hive. Whereas a goose has every reason under selection to put the good of herself and her own offspring ahead of the good of the gaggle.
The ant "feels" no other evolutionary force other than group selection. Whereas the goose "feels" the force of both individual and group selection, and individual selection is the stronger force.