I just received a review copy of E. O. Wilson’s The Social Conquest of Earth. One of the reasons why this book is “hot” is that Wilson has recently been revisiting the “levels of selection” debates, and significantly downgraded kin selection in the pantheon of evolutionary dynamics (at least in his mind). There has been a lot of talk on the blogs about Wilson’s ideas, in large part because of his partisan position on the Nowak vs. most other biologists debate, in favor of Nowak.
I don’t know if I’ll have time to review the book (a reality I honestly explained already to the people working at the publisher), but, it did get me thinking: what are the opinions of biologists in relation group selection? My personal experience is that opinions actually vary by discipline and by department. It’s hard to get a real sense, because people tend to be in their own “bubble.” With that in mind, I’ve put together a small survey to assess opinions. My core audience here are people who consider themselves biologists, though I can’t prevent someone with strong opinions from participating obviously!
So, a survey on group selection. You can see the …