V. Life's Evolutionary Development Organizes Itself: A 2020s Genesis Synthesis

A. A Major Emergent Evolutionary Transitions Scale

Wilson, David Sloan, et al. Multilevel Selection Theory and Major Evolutionary Transitions. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 17/1, 2008. As this synthesis gains acceptance, human persons can be seen poised for a further integration into various organism-like group assemblies which can take on a modicum of their own cognition and mind, surely an occasion of import for psychologists.

When between-group selection dominates within-group selection, a major evolutionary transition occurs. The social group becomes a higher-level organism and the members of the group acquire an organ-like status. This idea was first proposed to explain the evolution of eukaryotic (nucleated) cells, not by small mutational steps from prokaryotic (bacterial) cells but as highly integrated symbiotic associations of bacteria. The idea was then generalized to include other major transitions, including the first cells, multicellular organisms, social insect colonies, and even the origin of life as groups of cooperating molecular interactions. (7)

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