"Evolution has favored a species that buys lottery tickets."
It's (statistically) bad for the individual but good for the species.
This is a group selection argument. (If you don't know what that means, it's something that biologists use to scare their children.) Evolution does not operate on species. It operates on individuals. Genes that are statistically bad for individuals drop out of the gene pool no matter what they do for the species.
This is an ancient and thoroughly discredited idea. See George Williams's "Adaptation and Natural Selection."
Comment author:kaimialana
26 July 2010 10:17:44PM
5 points
[-]
Actually, there can be multi-level selection (MLS theory; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection#Multilevel_selection_theory) when there is competition between groups. In the same sense there is selection between individuals when there is competition between individuals, or the competition between genes popularized by Richard Dawkins.
This is the best solution for Darwin's problem of ant colonies, even better than haplodiploidy. I thought I would come out of lurking while reading through the sequences to mention this, since multi-level selection was demonized during the 70s under the name "group selection" due to some overzealous proponents. So, while we would not say "evolution has favored a species that buys lottery tickets", we might hypothesize evolution favors human societies that buy lottery tickets when under competition with other societies that do not (as an example).
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"Evolution has favored a species that buys lottery tickets."
It's (statistically) bad for the individual but good for the species.
This is a group selection argument. (If you don't know what that means, it's something that biologists use to scare their children.) Evolution does not operate on species. It operates on individuals. Genes that are statistically bad for individuals drop out of the gene pool no matter what they do for the species.
This is an ancient and thoroughly discredited idea. See George Williams's "Adaptation and Natural Selection."
Actually, there can be multi-level selection (MLS theory; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection#Multilevel_selection_theory) when there is competition between groups. In the same sense there is selection between individuals when there is competition between individuals, or the competition between genes popularized by Richard Dawkins.
http://www.americanscientist.org/my_amsci/restricted.aspx?act=pdf&id=16386020847008http://www.americanscientist.org/my_amsci/restricted.aspx?act=pdf&id=16386020847008 is a good primer.
This is the best solution for Darwin's problem of ant colonies, even better than haplodiploidy. I thought I would come out of lurking while reading through the sequences to mention this, since multi-level selection was demonized during the 70s under the name "group selection" due to some overzealous proponents. So, while we would not say "evolution has favored a species that buys lottery tickets", we might hypothesize evolution favors human societies that buy lottery tickets when under competition with other societies that do not (as an example).