[FRIAM] Group Selection Redux?

Mon Jan 3 17:08:37 EST 2022

Colleagues, 

Look.  I get it.  You don’t want to read my whole frigging article.  Ok. So.  Here for absolutely free, is the last bit which argues that flexible individuals (individuals that can learn and adapt) arise through selection on emergent group traits that are inherited from group to group through the proliferation and dissemination of adaptable elements at the next level down.  

Does This Formulation of Group Selection Exclude Trait-Group Selection?

I argued above that trait-group selection explanations be excluded consideration as group selection theories because they explain aggregate traits of groups. Given that trait-group selection theories are widely viewed as the most plausible group selection theories, surely they must play some role in a resolution of the group selection controversy. The role proposed for them here is as the mechanism of inheritance that connects selection for group traits in one generation with the occurrence of descendant groups with the same traits in the next generation. One problem for group selection theory has always been to explain how group properties are passed from generation to generation. The answer suggested by trait-group selection theory is that group-promoting traits are passed by the medium of individuals and that the more individuals with "group-promoting traits," the better organized and harmonious is the group, and the more offspring it has. As a genetic system, trait-group selection is the analogue of an individual level polygenic system in which the fitness of the individual is quantitatively related to the number of alleles of one kind in the set of loci relevant to the trait.

If trait-group selection is to play the role of a "genetic mechanism" in group selection theory, then it must be the case that, for instance, groups with more "group promoting" individuals (an aggregate trait) must be better organized and more harmonious (emergent traits). What sorts of individuals would be group

promoting in this way? What sort of elements which, when aggregated, would foster emergence of some group trait? The answer that comes to mind immediately is "flexible elements." A boat would be a poor competitor if it had all the best coxswains in the race or all the best stroke oarsmen; but a boat with all the most educable rowers in the race might be a very good competitor, since  educable rowers could learn the skills appropriate to each position in the boat. Thus, the relationship between emergent traits as a selective force and  trait-group  selection as an inheritance mechanism may account for why complex organizations in nature seem so often to be composed of generalist elements that become  specialized during development to serve different functions within the whole. Think of the body's cells, for instance, which all contain the same genetic information but come to serve very different functions during the course of development. Think of the neurons of the human cortex, which become structured and organized by position and by experience. Think of the workers in a beehive (Seeley, 1995).

Once group selection explanations are examined and specified in the way that this analysis suggests, their potential significance to evolutionary psychology immediately becomes clear. One of the problems of evolutionary psychology has been to explain why humans are such generalists. One explanation for human generality that has been proposed is the unpredictability of  the  human environment. Unpredictable environments have often thought to select for generalized responses because they prevent adaptations to local or temporary circumstances (Richerson & Boyd, in press).

The analysis of this paper suggests another reason why humans might be generalists-powerful group selection. Selection for aggregate properties at  any level is impotent to select for functional differentiation. It can, however, select for differentiability. Thus, the undifferentiated brain tissue and generalized behavior potential that characterize human beings and that make human language  and culture a possibility may be a direct result of group selection (Boyd & Richerson, 1985; Boehm, 1997). The exact mechanism by which this selection would come about is a combination of group selection, which would assure that functionally integrated groups generate more offspring groups than their nonfunctionally integrated alternatives, and trait-group inheritance, which would assure that aggregations of differentiable individuals are available to form functionally integrated groups.

Conclusion

Ambiguities arising from the shifting of Darwin's metaphor to the group level have troubled the study of social evolution long enough. When the  shifted metaphor is specified as a theory about the evolution of emergent properties of groups through differential group productivity mediated by trait-group inheritance, these ambiguities disappear. I hope that an evaluation of the prevalence and power of group selection theory can now proceed on this common ground.

Now, what, exactly, am I asking of you.  Only to type out the words, “Hey, Nick, this is the most effing brilliant passage in the history of evolutionary science, and  the world has suffered immeasurably because so few people have read it.”  

Now.  Seriously.  Is that so much to ask.  Twiddle your fingers for a few seconds and its done!

Nick 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: thompnickson2 at gmail.com <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> 
Sent: Monday, January 3, 2022 11:59 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Group Selection Redux?

Ok, I am still in the freezing cold room.  

Narcissist that I am, I want to explore the implications of my own insight – yes, it was mine, all mine, hooo-ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaahl—that the key to group selection is emergent properties of groups based on quantitative inheritance between “generations” of groups.  Sooooo, how do we get a group emergent property out of the aggregation of individual properties.  Not many individual properties are suitable.  But one  is.  TRACTIBILITY.  We see this in the immune system, or in bee hives, or in brain cells, etc.  What nature selects for at the group level is functional organization but that is achieved at the lower level by selection for tractability.  So, the human ability to learn is foundational to our capacity for “altruism”.  And vice versa.   This is all laid out in the final pages of  Shifting the Natural Selection Metaphor to the Group Level <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288818273_Shifting_the_natural_selection_metaphor_to_the_group_level> .  Published in the mid-oughts, you could be the first to read it.  Download it, and I will come to your house [masked, of course] and autograph it.   C’mon.  What could be better than that?!  Hooo-ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaahl

Ah.  The room temperature is up to 65 degrees.  Things are looking up. 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Monday, January 3, 2022 5:15 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

This is an interesting direction.

How small a minority does one have to be in, for it to count as an arbitrage opportunity?  In the El Farol and Minority Game abstractions, any minority is enough.

If we think about the dichotomy in public health, or in reason vs. hormonal aggression, the split in the US (at least by political commitments) is not so far from 50/50.  But as far as “profiting from the committed wrong”, that market seems to be cornered already by a very tiny percent, who have priced in much of the available surplus.  The difference between the dupes and the honest but powerless seems unimportant compared to the difference between both of those and the insiders with power, access, and control.  Somehow these richly structured extensive-form games with coalitional solution concepts seem very far from the market model in which we often think about arbitrage.

I am also reminded of the aphorism in that other realm “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”  Or in the case of climate, agricultural, and social instability, alive.

I wonder what makes an adequate toolbox of concepts and analogies with which to think about this (at least somewhat) systematically.

Eric

On Jan 2, 2022, at 2:58 PM, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

Nick writes:

< So, what does a healthy 2040 community look like.   What are we working TOWARD, here.  Once of the things that the Mcnamee podcast highlighted for me was my feeling that, in a chaotic world, people like me, planners, are just out of tune with the world. >

I don't think it really matters how people interact in social media or what they think.   What will matter is how people adapt to climate change and the exhaustion of food and energy, and the migrations resulting from climate change.  That's where the opportunities will be.   If there are millions of people that deny it is happening like they deny pandemics, then things simply must be arranged so that the natural accounting occurs.   The planners will look past the chaos and make their investments.. and wait.

Marcus

  _____  

From: Friam < <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of  <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> thompnickson2 at gmail.com < <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:32 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' < <mailto:friam at redfish.com> friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

So, what does a healthy 2040 community look like.   What are we working TOWARD, here.  Once of the things that the Mcnamee podcast highlighted for me was my feeling that, in a chaotic world, people like me, planners, are just out of tune with the world.  

By the way, I think “surfing the web” , as it has been used, is a terrible metaphor.  What most of us do is like water skiing the web.  Bouncing over the wake, never actually getting into the water.   Gives surfing a bad name.  A surfer finds the few survivable paths through an immense concentration of hostile forces.  Surfing is more like martial arts.  In fact we must begin to surf the web.   To realize the manners in which its hostile forces constrain us and find the few paths that allow us to master those forces and come out of the curl safely.  We thought it was a playground; now we see it’s a minefield. 

n

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,-Fd2M0MU4wX5y1N6mhhnNrFlsG64cdcJ8jOErlxB0hvFzR4dcEnKSSt2EqX5s2fb-wPOBqSH4X2Ap1mYP24zv3_muYGYijRLpnFKTxxN3dQyGtSp1B6x&typo=1> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam < <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 2:18 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < <mailto:friam at redfish.com> friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

Nick writes:

< Imagined a world in which we all worked at home, everything was on zoom, and everything was delivered by Amazon by drone.  I realize this is a reductio, but hum along with me for a few bars.  There would be no intermediate social landscape between the home and the distribution center.  No intermediate human scales. 

I can’t say immediately why this would be a bad thing, but my gut doesn’t like it.>

I can't think of many examples where the intermediate scales are anything but wasteful or intrusive.   Maybe to see a tailor coupled to the purchase of certain clothes?  I still drive to services (dentist, doctor, hair stylist), just not to redistributors, because they don't really add anything.   There's still a farmer's market that seems as popular as ever -- but they DO offer something unique.    I can drive five minutes to Home Depot but honestly half the time their inventory is exhausted for what I want, and I end up ordering it online.    

Marcus  

  _____  

From: Friam < <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of  <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> thompnickson2 at gmail.com < <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:03 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' < <mailto:friam at redfish.com> friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

Marcus,

I would like to be convinced …. But

Imagined a world in which we all worked at home, everything was on zoom, and everything was delivered by Amazon by drone.  I realize this is a reductio, but hum along with me for a few bars.  There would be no intermediate social landscape between the home and the distribution center.  No intermediate human scales. 

I can’t say immediately why this would be a bad thing, but my gut doesn’t like it.

Nick

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,p4rsPfl7qCnkvPDXzYT5M-1fZBZKaCDIB1z2Osc-CfFDLgw598S0mD13_Sppk4ua_2uMIZVWNAECmtZ8s2kblHg2quJex4YawfboMGbRTDU_u15bu8836eLAHQ,,&typo=1> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam < <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:38 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' < <mailto:friam at redfish.com> friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

I can see living without Facebook (I do), but why can't we live with Amazon?   It seems like they did a pretty good job of displacing the likes of Walmart.  It could happen again.  What added inherent value do stores have, other than as a mechanism to prevent he consolidation of market influence w.r.t. to prices?

  _____  

From: Friam < <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of  <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> thompnickson2 at gmail.com < <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 12:03 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' < <mailto:friam at redfish.com> friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

I just listened to this podcast

 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2ffeeds.megaphone.fm%2fVMP5489734702&c=E,1,G87ToIzgI5DT4ZpiKuXcRc2EHcS4lpVgIftU98yiNor7PFNa9lCoDMtpA2GT4_2eudXeeatF6BgR-Peqwvf8pBQOnsbOiuYBI693rGSZCjDA8-JbvEUZ&typo=1> https://feeds.megaphone.fm/VMP5489734702

a conversation between the former prosecutor, Joyce Vance, and the musician, financier, turncoat Facebook investor Roger Mcnamee, who likens this moment with big tech to the moment before the food industry regulations of the early 1900’s and anti-pollution legislation of the 60’s, moments when Da People reasserted control over over-weening industry interests.  He is author of the book, Zucked.

An hour-long pod cast is a terribly inefficient way to learn about something, so I hope that one you, for whom none of this is news, can offer a more condensed source.

We are basically talking about the Amazon paradox, here: can’t live with it; can’t live without it.  How much ARE we willing to pay to have the trains run on time?

As usual, I am in need of instruction. 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,AekdfP2MBl31iUxGjknOMPY6CLKTWZ0Uy_4dTUwGKgNke6kg7BN0qwu3VC8xzay12y6vtDYGszhL0ussBgpgtjOzZjJu9AWkUutwzgaFOibLSYQ0DDICSZg,&typo=1> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

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