Quote of the Day: Gene Selection: Society is built on mutually beneficial co-operation

At his blog, businessman, science journalist and author Matt Ridley discusses the political implication of Gene Selection versus Group Selection:

“Group selection” has always been portrayed as a more politically correct idea, implying that there is an evolutionary tendency to general altruism in people. Gene selection has generally seemed to be more of a right-wing idea, in which individuals are at the mercy of the harsh calculus of the genes.

Actually, this folk understanding is about as misleading as it can be. Society is not built on one-sided altruism but on mutually beneficial co-operation.

Nearly all the kind things people do in the world are done in the name of enlightened self-interest. Think of the people who sold you coffee, drove your train, even wrote your newspaper today. They were paid to do so but they did things for you (and you for them). Likewise, gene selection clearly drives the evolution of a co-operative instinct in the human breast, and not just towards close kin.

It can even drive a tendency to defend fellow members of the group if the survival of the group helps to perpetuate the genes. But group selection is a theory of competition between groups, and that is generally known by another name in human affairs. We call it war. If group selection were to work properly, war would mean the total annihilation of the enemy by the victorious group.