Why Skew Selection, a Model of Parental Exploitation, Should Replace Kin Selection

Synopsis In his 1964 paper, William Hamilton wrote that inclusive fitness trumps direct fitness if, and only if, the effect of interactions among siblings on their parent’s fitness is ‘zero’. Kin selection models have succeeded only because they have ignored the fact that, if an altruist dies saving two siblings, the ‘zero impact on their parent’s fitness’ constraint is violated. Imagine a parent with three offspring. If two offspring drown, parental fitness is 1. On the other hand, if one altruistic offspring dies saving its two drowning siblings, parental fitness doubles to 2. Thus, direct fitness trumps inclusive fitness as an explanation for the evolution of altruism. In other words, parents that produce some portion of altruistic offspring willing to die to save some of their siblings (who would die without the intervention of the altruist) will realize greater fitness than parents producing no altruists. Skew selection, a bioeconomic extension of Michael Ghiselin’s (1974) parental exploitation model, is presented to explain the evolution of altruism from a direct fitness point of view.     

从文化相对论视角透视民族文化

在文化人类学领域,作为与传统进化论相悖的理论模式,相对论旗帜鲜明的指出：每一个民族都有自己的文化,每一种文化又是不同社会、民族交汇融合衍生的产物。作为人类文明发展链条上不可或缺的一环,其自身的存在与发展均有着不可替代的价值和意义。     

A Test of Two Skew Models to Explain Cooperative Breeding

Synopsis Two competing models, reproductive skew and skew selection, have been constructed to explain the evolution of cooperation among unrelated breeders. Reproductive skew is a trade-off model that assumes breeding occurs under scarce resource conditions. One breeder gains units of fecundity at the expense of other breeders during aggressive, altruistic or tug-of-war transactions. After joining, the distribution of fecundity among breeders shifts from symmetrical to asymmetrical. In contrast, skew selection is a surplus model that assumes breeding occurs during a springtime glut. Skew selection assumes that fecundity among breeders is initially asymmetrical and that joining reduces the asymmetry of fecundity. This paper reports findings from a breeding experiment on the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, which supported skew selection rather than reproductive skew. Joining was a win-win strategy for alpha and beta breeders; beta breeders gained within-group survival benefits; alpha breeders gained between-group survival benefits. In summary, skew selection extends Darwin’s theory of natural selection by revealing the self-interested core of cooperative breeding.      

The Role of Ethnic Nepotism vs. Economic Pragmatism in Inter-group Conflict: Data on the Yugoslavian Civil War*

Neo-Darwinian concepts such as van den Berghe's ethnic nepotism infer that the origin of inter-group conflict resides primarily in ethnocentrism, defined as the extension of inclusive fitness to extra-familial interactions. Silverman, however, has proposed an alternative view, based on the presumption that natural selection favors pragmatism and plasticity in the formation of group alliances. Silverman's theory holds that the motives for inter-group oppression and warfare, including so-called ethnic cleansing movements, are economic, whereby out-group prejudices represent rationalizations rather than root causes. The present paper reviews Silverman's and Silverman and Case's evidence for this theory and provides further supporting data in terms of relationships between changes in economic conditions and ethnocentric attitudes during the years immediately preceding the recent Yugoslavian hostilities. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Demonstrating group selection: A comment on Janet Landa’s ‘The bioeconomics of homogenous middleman groups as adaptive units’

Janet Landa provides an impressive historical tour of the development of her theory of homogeneous middlemen groups (HMGs), and how she arrived at the group selection approach. Despite her claim that the case studies she presents provide evidence for group selection in human societies, we argue that such a conclusion is premature. We suggest that an evolutionary explanation of HGMs will be strengthened by greater attention to the details of the selective process.     

A Reconsideration of the Bioeconomics of Marine Sanctuaries: Commentary on Jon Conrad's Paper

Conrad (1999) examined the bioeconomics of marine sanctuaries and found: (1) a sanctuary that takes up a large share of the potential grounds can make fishing uneconomic, (2) a sanctuary of roughly the same size as the grounds can significantly reduce the standard deviation of the stock on the grounds when both stocks are growing randomly. It is argued that when one divides a fishery into grounds and a sanctuary the firm cost parameter should be adjusted in value as well as the capacity parameters. With this modification one finds that fishing grounds of smaller sizes are more profitable relative to their size than larger grounds and that the reduction in variability of stocks on the fishing ground is relatively smaller. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Hayek Contra Pangloss: A Rejoinder

Whitman (1998) claims that Friedrich Hayek's theory of cultural evolution was not Panglossian. Denis's (2002) refutation relies on an overbroad definition of the term Panglossian, a misunderstanding of the implications of group selection theory, and an incomplete understanding of the nested character of evolutionary processes in Hayek's approach.     

Group Selection and the Limits to Altruism

Several evolutionary mechanisms have been identified in the literature that would generate altruism in humans. The most powerful (except for kin selection) and most controversial is group selection, as recently analyzed by Sober & D.S. Wilson. I do not take a stand on the issue of the existence of group selection. Instead, I examine the level of human altruism that could exist if group selection were an engine of human evolution. For the Sober & Wilson mechanism to work, groups practicing altruism must grow faster than other groups. I call altruistic behavior that would lead to faster growth efficient altruism. This often consists of cooperation in a prisoner's dilemma. ltruistic acts such as helping a temporarily hungry or injured person would qualify as efficient altruism. Efficient altruism would also require monitoring recipients to avoid shirking. Utilitarianism would be an ethical system consistent with efficient altruism, but Marxism or the Rawlsian system would not. Discussions of efficient altruism also help understand intuitions about fairness. We perceive those behaviors as fair that are consistent with efficient altruism. It is important to understand that, even if humans are selected to be altruistic, the forms of altruism that might exist must be carefully considered and ircumscribed.     

Accounting for economic evolution: Fitness and the population method

The theme of this paper is the general population dynamics of evolutionary processes, and, in particular, a number of accounting concepts that are central to any understanding of evolutionary processes of the variation-cum-selection retention kind. A population perspective, for example, turns out to be crucial to the study of the competitive process in economic systems defined at the level of industries, sectors and markets. Business rivalry, underpinned by differential innovative activity, is the basis of the differential survival and growth of competing economic activities and the strategies deployed to create sustainable differences in competitive selection characteristics are at the core of the capitalist dynamic interpreted as an adaptive, evolutionary process. This kind of evolutionary argument is necessarily concerned with growth rate dynamics and the explanation of the diversity of growth rates across entities in a population. However, the following discussion does not provide any causal explanation of economic evolution in terms of the determinants of growth rate differences, rather it provides a bookkeeping scheme in which different causal theories may be set and compared. Growth dynamics and structural change are the two central features of variation/selection processes within populations and I explore them in terms of three themes: namely, Logistic Growth Accounting; Competition Accounting; and, the Price Theorem. The unifying theme that links all three is their relation to the population method in evolutionary theory.      

Teaching Bioeconomics

Bioeconomics is a relatively young field that uses an expanded microeconomics to examine animal behavior, human behavior, and animal and human social institutions. A voluminous literature is rapidly accumulating. There are as yet no standard textbooks, but there are several excellent books and/or articles that can be used in combination with videos and other aids to make a course that students will enjoy and that teachers can use to advance the frontiers of scholarship in economics and biology.*Invited editorial     

产业集群演化与生命周期研究述评

国内外学者关于产业集群生命周期的研究讨论了产业集群成长的周期性波动,描绘了产业集群从低级到高级演化的过程,多是从连续性的演化发展着手,忽视了其演化路径的中断和逆转。我国产业集群处于形成阶段和成长早期,应根据产业集群发展阶段制定针对性政策,防止集群衰落。     

The Bioeconomics of Cooperation

When transactions and information are costly and exchange is non-simultaneous, ‘institutions matter’. They matter because exchange under these circumstances subjects the participants to potentially harmful behaviors by other participants, among which are: opportunistic behavior, agency, the free-rider problem, cheating, moral hazard, and adverse selection. Institutions constrain these behaviors, allowing the participants to take advantage of the gains from trade and specialization, and thereby facilitating cooperation. Individuals adhere to institutional rules because they gain by doing so. Because the individual gains are inseparable from the structure of the institutions, the institutions themselves necessarily become the focus of the analysis—as we see in the new institutional economics (NIE). The new group selection position in biology involves a similar shift in focus from the level of the individual to the group when studying the evolution of altruism. But some of the proponents of group selection go further, arguing that altruism in biology evolves because it is in the interest of the group, but not the individual. In fact, group level analysis is necessary in biology, as in the NIE, because it allows for the discovery of ‘institutions’ that constrain cheating, opportunistic behavior, etc., thereby making participation in the group in the long-run self-interest of the individual. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Hayek Reads the Literature on the Emergence of Norms

Hayek’s approach to cultural and institutional evolution has been frequently criticized because it is explicitly based on the controversial notion of (cultural) group selection. In this paper this criticism is rejected on the basis of recent works on biological and cultural evolution. The paper’s main contention is that Hayek employed group selection as a tool for the explanation of selection among several equilibria, and not as a vehicle for the emergence of out of equilibrium behavior (i.e., altruism). The paper shows that Hayek’s ideas foreshadowed some of the most promising developments in the current literature on the emergence of norms. JEL Classification: B31, B41     

浅析转型中的中国经济

从中国目前的经济成就和问题谈起,运用包容性增长和科学发展观的理念和方法来对中国经济发展转型进行考察,并得出与保障中国经济平稳、快速发展相配套的必要措施。     

基于包容性发展的城镇化质量测度及系统耦合分析

构建了涵盖城市包容质量的城镇化质量测度体系,利用2000—2012年新疆的数据进行了实证测度,并据此分析了城镇化质量系统中的各子系统与城市包容质量子系统的耦合关系。研究结果显示:2000—2012年新疆城镇化质量的提升速度要慢于城镇化率的提升速度;经济发展质量、人口就业质量基本逐年提高,生态环境质量、城乡协调质量逐步下降,居民生活质量略有上升,总体上呈波浪式变化趋势,公共服务质量先下降后上升,城市包容质量总体呈下降趋势;经济发展质量、人口就业质量、生态环境质量、居民生活质量、公共服务质量和城乡协调质量与城市包容质量之间存在明显的相互影响关系;2010—2012年人口就业质量、居民生活质量、城乡协调质量与城市包容质量的耦合度基本上处于极限发展阶段,彼此矛盾亟待调整。在此基础上,提出相应的政策建议。     

旅游地文化空间及其演化机理

旅游活动的文化属性决定了旅游地本质上是为旅游者提供一个文化空间。从旅游地文化的空间研究转向空间的文化研究,并厘清旅游地文化空间的内涵及其演化机理,寻求旅游地的文化发展规律,有助于解决旅游规划与开发中"造文化、造景观"的困境。基于空间生产和景观生态学原理,以及旅游地文化空间的活态性,旅游地文化空间的时间和功能演化是由原居民的生产与生活空间演变为服务于旅游发展的生产与生活空间的过程。旅游地文化空间在形态上,则表现为文化节点、文化轴线、文化场、文化域面等基本空间形态的形成与演化。文化场作为最为重要的空间形态,它是旅游地进行生产、生活与服务的真实场景,体现了人与旅游景观的社会文化关系。     

生物入侵造成经济损失评估的研究进展

生物入侵是生物多样性减少的最重要的因素之一,同时还造成巨大的经济损失,包括直接经济损失和间接经济损失。外来入侵物种造成经济损失评估的研究有助于相关政策的制定以及社会对生物入侵问题的认识与关注。从应用角度考虑,目前国内外对生物入侵造成经济损失的评估分为两类:一类是影响评估,即生态系统服务价值丧失的评估;另一类是政策决策评估,即入侵物种防治的经济分析。文章对国内外生物入侵产生的经济影响、经济损失评估内容及方法、研究面临的主要问题及未来研究趋势进行综述和展望,以期为该领域更深入的研究建立理论参考基础。     

园亭流芳：中国古典园林海外传播的 文化学概述

中国古典园林是基于中国农耕文明背景的内生型人 文景观,却在不同历史阶段直接或间接地影响着域外园林的生 成和发展。基于文化传播的视角探索了农耕时代亚洲的地缘扩 散、17—18世纪欧洲的跨域漂积,以及20世纪全球的跨文化 移植3个不同时空阶段的海外中国古典园林传播方式和典型模 式,认为全球化下差异性的文化协同和竞争是中国古典园林持 续演进的外生动力。