Taking a Cue From Ants on Evolution of Humans

[groovedaddy]

To reach Edward O. Wilson’s office on the Harvard campus, one must first push through a door with a sign warning the public not to enter. Then, enter a creaky old elevator and press two buttons simultaneously. This counterintuitive procedure transports one into a strange realm.

It is a space that holds the world’s largest collection of ants, some 14,000 species. Curators are checking the drawers, dominated by the tall figure of Dr. Wilson, who is trying to contain his excitement: the 14,001st ant species has just been discovered in the soils of a Brazilian forest. He steamrolls any incipient skepticism about the ant’s uniqueness — the new species is a living coelacanth of ants, a primitive throwback to the first ant, a wasp that shed its wings and assigned all its descendants to live in earth, not their ancestral air. The new ant is so alien, Dr. Wilson explains, so unlike any known to earthlings, that it will be named as if it came from another planet.

Ants are Dr. Wilson’s first and enduring love. But he has become one of the world’s best-known biologists through two other passions, his urge to create large syntheses of knowledge and his gift for writing. Through the power of his words, he champions the world’s biodiversity and regularly campaigns for conservation measures.

Though he celebrated his 79th birthday last month, Dr. Wilson is generating a storm of literary output that would be impressive for someone half his age. An updated edition of “The Superorganism,” his encyclopedic work on ants co-written with Bert Hölldobler, will be published in November. Dr. Wilson is at work on his first novel. He is preparing a treatise on the forces of social evolution, which seems likely to apply to people the lessons evident in ant colonies. And he is engaged in another fight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15wils.html?th&emc=th

[phantom power]

1. I got to see Bert Hölldobler present some of his work on ants.

Amazing behaviors going on with ants.

[trotsky]

2. Fascinating.

...Many evolutionary biologists have been persuaded, by works like “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins, that the gene is the only level at which natural selection acts. Dr. Wilson, changing his mind because of new data about the genetics of ant colonies, now believes that natural selection operates at many levels, including at the level of a social group.

It is through multilevel or group-level selection — favoring the survival of one group of organisms over another — that evolution has in Dr. Wilson’s view brought into being the many essential genes that benefit the group at the individual’s expense. In humans, these may include genes that underlie generosity, moral constraints, even religious behavior. Such traits are difficult to account for, though not impossible, on the view that natural selection favors only behaviors that help the individual to survive and leave more children.

I guess I wasn't aware that this was such a huge sticking point among scientists. Seems pretty obvious to me. A group that is altruistic and looks after each other is intuitively far more likely to survive than one that doesn't.

[Warpy]

3. It seems to be a seesaw sort of thing

The selfish gene being the one that wants to keep our bodies alive, damn the costs to the social unit. It's the one that has us hoard the last scrap of bread in famine or push other people down when we're scrambling for the surface and a gulp of air in a shipwreck. It's entirely a survival instinct thing and we all have it.

The altruistic one is the one that shares food with the group and helps other thrashing people into spare space in the lifeboat, knowing that each person brings another survival skill to the group and that the more of us there are, the greater possibility that some will survive.

For what it's worth, I see an insect colony as a single organism, the individual worker insects having about as much self determination as the individual cells lining our blood vessels or guts. Their function is programmed chemically and their response to stress is limited.

[Indenturedebtor]

4. Yes the insect colony with only one set of genitals is one organism

Philosophically I think that this Dr. has put the group selection stuff into a slightly different perspective, but the current models for the development of altruism seem pretty damn solid to me. There have been quite a few good studies demonstrating that genetic closeness directly affects altruistic behaviors (even just seeing your cousin makes you more likely to help a stranger). The more closely genetically related to someone you are - the more likely you are to sacrifice for the group.

But that's still individual preservation of genes. It's not societal.

[cyborg_jim]

5. The altruistic gene is still selfish

Altruism is just another strategy by which a gene may potentially increase its frequency - and anything that enables a gene to potentially increase its frequency is something that is liable to become prevalent in a population and hence change its genealogy.

So when altruistic behaviours deriving from a genetic determinant are successful we see social species form.

[TZ]

6. Oh I learned about altruism back in college

Its been observed that altruistic behavior occurs much more commonly among related animals..A professor of mine in college studied vampire bats..And it was observed that if a particular bat did not get enough fresh blood from a nights feeding for some reason sometimes another bat would share (regurgitate) some of its blood that it had ingested..He did a thorough study and pretty much showed that the altruistic behavior was always between closely related bats! (siblings, offspring etc). Because your sibling/relative has similar genes you are in effect helping to pass on your genes by helping them. All back to the selfish gene thing!
Sorry, this stuff fascinates me..EO Wilson and Dawkins were too of my favorites when I was in college..