David Sloan Wilson is famous for his work on group selection, a.k.a. multi-level selection, and it is quite a coup for Seed and Scienceblogs.com that he has joined our ranks. Please visit E4E and say hey.
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Wilson and Wilson begin by reviewing the reasons why sociobiology of the 1970s was rejected. They focus on the arguments against group selection.
Levels of selection
In the period in which sociobiology was first proposed under that label (from now on, the term sociobiology refers to this…
Bora made two quick references to "group selection" today. I don't have much time...and shouldn't be blogging, but I want to make a few quick points before this topic goes down the memory hole (I know, unnecessary caveat, but I am driven by personal guilt in expressing it, not public shame). For…
So, check out this retarded post at the Huntington Post, Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human Behavior:
Plain talk: The Darwinian prop of the lone cowboy rugged conservative bundle of selfish genes has now been pulled out from under the cowboy and the lone cowboy has…
Way back when, while I was still an active grad student, I was a student representative on the departmental seminar committee for about four years (going through four faculty members rotating through the position). So, I pushed for a Darwin Day seminar - inviting someone to give a talk that is not…
I have subscribed there and will give it a try. I am not a fan of his work.
First negative strike is his approval process for comments.
That approval process is the default on new blogs. Hopefully that will go away.
I also disagree with much of what he has put forward but he's a smart guy and he's not an asshole. I don't ask for much more in the blogosphere. There will be some interesting conversations.
Then let the fun commence :)
It has been >12 hours and my welcome comment is still not there.
(hmmmm.... Am I a victim of instant gratification? I am old enough to remember that one of my first inter-continental emails actually got to the other side of the continent is only a few hours!)
I've only seen the launch of a blog go smoothly in a few instances. Quichemoraine.com was smooth.
He writes very clearly and very articulately. This is good: "...they stuff the believer, like a human cannonball, into an ideological cannon to be shot in the direction of glory and away from ruin."
I don't know yet how much I agree with his ideas, but I'm very interested in hearing rebuttals from those of you who disagree. I do know that a lot of folks who are atheists often can't defend their statements very well, which seems to support Wilson's position.