In evolutionary biology, group selection refers to the idea that alleles can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow on groups, regardless of the alleles’ effect on the fitness of individuals within that group.
Population: In biology and ecology, a group of organisms of one species, living in a certain area. The organisms are able to interbreed. It also refers to the members of a given species in a community of living things.
For examples of group selection critics being more sympathetic towards species selection, see Dawkins, T.E.P., page 101 onwards and Mark Ridley’s evolution textbook:
Group selection is said to occur when the traits of groups that systematically
out-reproduce competing groups eventually come to characterize the species.
That wasn’t my greatest reply ever—I was in a rush. Yes, Dawkins included species in your quote. And Williams (1966) defined the term “group” in a way that didn’t explicitly rule out species. So, I agree that some prominent folks have included species under the group selection umbrella at least once.
However, at least 90% of group selection models deal with sexual species. If you claim group selection exists, and then exhibit species selection to prove it, an awful lot of evolutionary biologists are going to say: “well, that’s just species selection—we already know about that”.
Interdemic selection has a problem not found in species selection—namely gene flow typically tends to quickly destroy variation between groups. It is that that effect that Maynard-Smith modelled in the material you cite—and it is interdemic selection which is the most controversial.
I don’t really see where you are going with this. Yes, all the members of a species could qualify as being a “population”—expecially if they all lived in the same place.
However, that doesn’t make species selection into a special case of group selection under the Wikipedia definition.
Wikipedia gives an acceptable definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection
In the context of biology or ecology, a “population” is defined as being a collection of organisms of the same species:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population
http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0015159.html
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=population
For examples of group selection critics being more sympathetic towards species selection, see Dawkins, T.E.P., page 101 onwards and Mark Ridley’s evolution textbook:
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/a-z/Group_selection_.asp
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/a-z/Species_selection.asp
For a different definition, consider:
http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/nthompson/Publish%20Work/meta4grp.pdf
That wasn’t my greatest reply ever—I was in a rush. Yes, Dawkins included species in your quote. And Williams (1966) defined the term “group” in a way that didn’t explicitly rule out species. So, I agree that some prominent folks have included species under the group selection umbrella at least once.
However, at least 90% of group selection models deal with sexual species. If you claim group selection exists, and then exhibit species selection to prove it, an awful lot of evolutionary biologists are going to say: “well, that’s just species selection—we already know about that”.
Interdemic selection has a problem not found in species selection—namely gene flow typically tends to quickly destroy variation between groups. It is that that effect that Maynard-Smith modelled in the material you cite—and it is interdemic selection which is the most controversial.
A species is a collection of organisms of the same species.
A family is a collection of organisms of the same species (although I have my doubts about that aunt...)
Your point is not clear to me.
If you define a species as the set of all such organisms, then a “population” is a subset of that set.
And a set is a subset of itself.
I don’t really see where you are going with this. Yes, all the members of a species could qualify as being a “population”—expecially if they all lived in the same place.
However, that doesn’t make species selection into a special case of group selection under the Wikipedia definition.