Learning From Bees and Ants - March 13, 2012

A recent New Yorker article (March 5, 2012, Kin and Kind) on E.O. Wilson et al. regarding altruism is sending me vibrating. 

At age 82 Wilson is repudiating earlier ideas included in his work described in his book, Sociobiology, and now claims that altruism in eusocial species such as ants and bees is not a result of genetic forces that preserve privilege for certain groups, but rather that the evolutionary steps in developing cooperative species are so complex and dependent on pre-adaptations, that once they form a cooperative group the altruism becomes a consequence of eusociality, not its cause.

He summarizes by speculating "that human generosity might have evolved as an emergent property not of the individual but of the group" (Jonathan Lehrer - Kin and Kind, New Yorker, March 5, 2012) which is an idea that harkens back to Darwin. Recent studies of cooperating microbes, plants, and lions have shown that cooperative groups performed better than selfish groups. 

Wilson speculates that humans are influenced by both cooperation within groups, yet not to a robotic degree such as in bees and ants, and by individual drives, creating a species that hangs in the balance of these forces.

My mind starts buzzing with the ideas of morphogenetic resonance providing a possible template for the complex genetic adaptations that allow group cooperation along with altruism and in the higher, more complex organisms bringing a balance of the group and individual forces to maximize benefits of each.

It's also exciting from the perspective of the importance of the group in supporting the altruistic tendencies.

Encaustic Monotype