V. Life's Corporeal Evolution Develops, Encodes and Organizes Itself: An Earthtwinian Genesis Synthesis

5. Cooperative Member/Group Societies

Whitehead, Hal and Luke Rendell. The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Two premier authorities on this subject domain, Whitehead, a Dalhousie University research biologist, and Rendell a University of St. Andrews, Sea Mammal Research Unit and Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, whose association began as professor and student circa 2000 (search), now confirm by fascinating anecdote, vignette, and research study that our cetacean companions do indeed have an oceanic acumen and extensive sociality.

Whitehead, Hal, et al. The Reach of Gene-Culture Coevolution in Animals. Nature Communications. 10/2405, 2019. A premier team of bioecologists - HW, Kevin Laland, Luke Rendell, Rose Thorogood and Andrew Whiten – describe the creative interplay between genetic source codes and the common presence of behavioral groupings across aquatic, avian and mammalian species. See also Animal Learning as a Source of Developmental Bias by K. Laland, et al in Evolution & Development (e12311, 2019).

Culture (behaviour based on socially transmitted information) is present in diverse animal species, yet how it interacts with genetic evolution remains largely unexplored. Here, we review the evidence for gene–culture coevolution in animals, especially birds, cetaceans and primates. We describe how culture can relax or intensify selection under different circumstances, create new selection pressures by changing ecology or behaviour, and favour adaptations, including in other species. Finally, we illustrate how, through culturally mediated migration and assortative mating, culture can shape population genetic structure and diversity. This evidence suggests that animal culture plays an important coevolutionary role, in nature. (Abstract)

Whiten, Andrew. The Second Inheritance Systems of Chimpanzees and Humans. Nature. 437/205, 2005. A companion article to a special section on the newly decoded chimp genome that summarizes recent work to the effect that not only do we have a cultural domain which can override molecular genes, but so also do our nearest primate cousins.

Williams, Tom and Martin Embley. Changing Ideas about Eukaryotic Origins. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 370/1678, 2015. As symbiosis finally becomes an evolutionary paradigm, Newcastle University bioscientists introduce a review issue on Eukaryotic Origins: Progress and Challenges. Contributors such as Laura Katz, Eugene Koonin, James Lake, William Martin, Ryan Gregory, and Ford Doolittle discuss many aspects genomes to phylogenetic trees.

Wilson, David Sloan. Animal Movement as a Group-Level Adaptation. Sue Boinski and Paul Garber, eds. On the Move. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. More case studies which support a multilevel selection based on the adaptive and cognitive properties of social species such as African buffalo.

Wilson, David Sloan. Cooperation and Altruism. Fox, Charles, et al, eds. Evolutionary Ecology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. New evidence validates the concept of group selection whereby animal societies find cooperation more advantageous that conflict and can be seen as rudimentary social organisms. When this concept is situated in a multilevel selection theory, the rise of life appears as a nested series of whole entities.

Evolution is often envisioned as a long series of mutational steps, from the origin of life, to bacteria, to the multicellular organisms of today. It is almost certain that another evolutionary process is at work, in which social groups become so functionally integrated that they become a new organism. (229)

Wilson, David Sloan. Does Altruism Exist? Culture, Genes and the Welfare of Others. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. In this latest work, the SUNY Binghamton evolutionary biologist advances his multi-level group selection views about beneficial cooperative behaviors that appear at all of life’s stages from microbes to a metropolis. A proper recognition of this constancy, aided by concerned social reformers from Auguste Comte to Elinor Ostrom, has the potential to foster a “planetary altruism.”

Wilson, David Sloan. Introduction: Multilevel Selection Theory Comes of Age. American Naturalist. 150/Supplement, 1997. A special edition to explore and articulate the rehabilitated appreciation of group selection. We quote from the author’s paper on “Altruism and Organism.”

One of the beauties of multilevel selection theory is that the same conceptual framework is applied to all levels of the biological hierarchy. (S123)

Wilson, David Sloan and Edward O. Wilson. Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology. Quarterly Review of Biology. 82/4, 2007. The possibility that as organisms assemble, interact, and evolve they could, at sufficient density, be considered a higher-order organism, aka group selection, has had a checkered 20th century past. In this article, two of the prime players achieve a cogent summary for a strong 21st century argument that indeed this is the case. With the growing acceptance of ‘multi-level selection’ via ‘major transitions,’ as a quote conveys, what is revealed is a nested, sequential procession of more complex, individual entities from microbes to civilization. As a result, a distributed, intelligent ‘group mind’ accrues.

An illustrated article by the authors in American Scientist for September-October 2008 makes a similarly cogent case. But here is an association and leap not taken. What W. & W. describe is an evolutionary structure and dynamics with the same characteristic form as a typical, repetitively emergent, self-organizing system. By such a correlation, life’s stratified ascent, as distinguished by the same pattern and process at each whole stage, could be seen to spring from and exemplify such a universal, independent source. In any event, this work is a major conceptual synthesis, with copious references, which much augurs for a natural genesis.

To summarize, four decades of research since the 1960s have provided ample empirical evidence for group selection, in addition to its theoretical plausibility as a significant evolutionary force. (334) An important advance in evolutionary biology began with (Lynn) Margulis’s theory of the eukaryotic cell. She proposed that eukaryotic (nucleated) cells did not evolve by small mutational steps from prokaryotic (bacterial) cells, but by symbiotic associations of bacteria becoming so integrated that the associations qualified as single organism in their own right. The concept of groups of organisms turning into groups as organisms was then extended to other major transitions during the history of life, including the origin of life itself as groups of cooperating molecular reactions, the first cells, and multicellular organisms. (337)

The psychological traits associated with human moral systems are comparable to the mechanisms that suppress selection within groups for other major transitions, such as chromosomes and the rules of meiosis within multicellular organisms and policing mechanisms within eusocial insect colonies. (339) When Rabbi Hillel was asked to explain the Torah in the time that he could stand on one foot, he famously replied: “Do not do unto others that which is repugnant to your. Everything else is commentary.” Darwin’s original insight and the developments review in this article enable us to offer the following one-foot summary of sociobiology’s new theoretical foundations: “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.” (341)

Wilson, Robert A. Group-Level Cognition. Philosophy of Science. 68/3 Supplement, 2001. A philosophical defense of the quantified reappearance and appreciation of social groups with their own minds.

Witzany, Guenther. RNA Sociology: Group Behavioral Motifs of RNA Consortia. Life. Online December, 2014. Along with James Shapiro, Eva Jablonka, Denis Noble, and an expanding chorus, the Austrian natural philosopher continues astute perceptions of a more proactive, relational genome. In this paper, even RiboNucleic Acid molecules are seen to have similar propensities to form and avail genome groupings similar to all other animal and human entities.

RNA sociology investigates the behavioral motifs of RNA consortia from the social science perspective. Besides the self-folding of RNAs into single stem loop structures, group building of such stem loops results in a variety of essential agents that are highly active in regulatory processes in cellular and non-cellular life. RNA stem loop self-folding and group building do not depend solely on sequence syntax; more important are their contextual (functional) needs. Also, evolutionary processes seem to occur through RNA stem loop consortia that may act as a complement. This means the whole entity functions only if all participating parts are coordinated, although the complementary building parts originally evolved for different functions. If complementary groups, such as rRNAs and tRNAs, are placed together in selective pressure contexts, new evolutionary features may emerge. Evolution initiated by competent agents in natural genome editing clearly contrasts with statistical error replication narratives. (Abstract)

Wright, Colin, et al. Collective Personalities: Present Knowledge and New Frontiers. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 73/3, 2019. Penn State, UC Santa Barbara, McMaster University, and Francois-Rabelais University, Tours, France behavioral biologists including Jonathan Pruitt propose a new realization about animal groupings of all kinds. In addition to cognitive qualities, communal personality traits can be observed as they interact with other groups. See also Animal Personality Aligns Task Specialization and Task Proficiency in a Spider Society by Colin Wright, et al in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (111/9533, 2014).

Collective personalities refer to consistent, distinct behaviors between social groups. This phenomenon is a ubiquitous feature of social groups, as many lab and field studies to date have documented between-group differences in collective behavior, and reveal ongoing selection on these traits. Here, we summarize recent works conducted in the model systems of social spiders and eusocial insects. We used a trait-by-trait format to compare the results and trends obtained in these taxa on 10 aspects of collective personality: division of labor, foraging, exploration, boldness, defensive behavior, aggressiveness, decision-making, cognition, learning, and nest construction. We conclude that the recognition of actual communal personalities can improve understandings of all manner an animal groupings. (Abstract)

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