Richard Dawkins wrote an obituary for George Williams in the Oct. 1 Science, in which he said that Williams developed the idea of “clade selection” which Dawkins calls important. Clade selection is the idea that selection can operate on an entire clade.
The article this post is about a clade. It’s clade selection in that the entire clade has benefitted from SI. Is it also species selection, because entire species are selected against when they develop SC? I think so.
In either case, I think it’s hypocritical of Dawkins to call group selection “loose, intellectually shoddy.. muddled”, and in the same article praise clade selection.
Rather than calling Dawkins a hypocrite, don’t you think it would be more appropriate to simply note that Dawkins seems to be another person who doesn’t agree with you that clade selection (and hence species selection) is just one form of group selection?
Richard Dawkins wrote an obituary for George Williams in the Oct. 1 Science, in which he said that Williams developed the idea of “clade selection” which Dawkins calls important. Clade selection is the idea that selection can operate on an entire clade.
The article this post is about a clade. It’s clade selection in that the entire clade has benefitted from SI. Is it also species selection, because entire species are selected against when they develop SC? I think so.
In either case, I think it’s hypocritical of Dawkins to call group selection “loose, intellectually shoddy.. muddled”, and in the same article praise clade selection.
Rather than calling Dawkins a hypocrite, don’t you think it would be more appropriate to simply note that Dawkins seems to be another person who doesn’t agree with you that clade selection (and hence species selection) is just one form of group selection?
Obituary: George C. Williams (1926–2010) - By RICHARD DAWKINS