From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Subject: Re: group selection for homosexuality
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 08:47:30 GMT

In article <92396@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
>	The first requires no group selective arguments. Sterile
>workers reproduce by proxy because they are closely related to
>the queen and can pump out more offspring indirectly by serving
>as a worker or soldier than if each ant tried to reproduce by
>itself. This is often called kin selection and it is _not_ a
>form of group selection because the _individuals_ inclusive
>fitness is sufficient to maintain this form of breeding.
>
>	The second aspect (complex divisions of labor) I think can
>evolve via group selection. In eusocial behavior, interactions 
>between different individuals give rise to emergent properties at
>the level of the group -- if there are heritable differences 
>between the two groups with respect to the underlying factors
>that influence these emergent properties, group selection can 
>occur.

I think your making an arbitrary distinction here. The property of
having worker bees is subject to group selection as well as any
properties of the bee that promotes the well being of the queen, since
these will directly influence the ability to start new hives.

So according to your definitions is the "queer uncle" theory a case
of group selection or kin selection? I tend to think in humans there
will not be a difference since people work to support there neighbors
as well as there kin.

>	Mr. Foard then goes on to say:
>
>>There is no reason why it should be absent in
>>higher animals. 
>
>	There are plenty of reasons why it should be absent it
>"higher" animals. But first of all, please don't call animals
>higher or lower -- this plays into one of the major miscon-
>ceptions about evolution. Evolution is not a scale or ladder.

I've always seen higher used to refer to intellegence and not
level of evolution. Your getting overly defensive from arguing
with fundies to much :-)

>	Group selection is absent from most animal species for
>one very good reason -- selection at the level of the individual
>is a far more potent "force". If humans lived in highly inbred
>groups and reproduced by sending out propagule groups, then you
>could argue that group selection might be possible. 

Historically people have formed atleast somewhat isolated tribes.

>As it is,
>humans are nearly panmictic (randomly breeding) -- there is
>a certain amount of assortative mating (people tend to breed with
>others of the same melanin content, height, weight, intelligence
>etc.(*)) -- but not enough, IMHO, that the opportunity for group
>selection exists.

Your looking at a highly modern mobile society, in ancient times
distances alone would have made it impossible to select from a wide
variety. Most likely people would mate with someone in there tribe
or a nearby tribe. 

I see no grounds for the ascertion that group selection could not
have happened in humans.
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