[[link removed]]

SURVIVAL OF THE NICEST: HAVE WE GOT EVOLUTION THE WRONG WAY ROUND?  
[[link removed]]


 

Jonathan R. Goodman
April 8, 2024
Nature [[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ How humans, animals and even single-celled organisms cooperate to
survive suggests there’s more to life than just competition, argues
a cheering study of evolutionary biology. _

,

 

SELFISH GENES TO SOCIAL BEINGS: A COOPERATIVE HISTORY OF
LIFE _Jonathan Silvertown_ Oxford Univ. Press (2024)

The fact that all life evolved thanks to natural selection can have
depressing connotations. If ‘survival of the fittest’ is the key
to evolution, are humans hardwired for conflict with one another? Not
at all, says evolutionary biologist Jonathan Silvertown in his latest
book, _Selfish Genes to Social Beings_. On the contrary, he argues,
many phenomena in the natural world, from certain types of predation
to parasitism, rely on cooperation. Thus “we need no longer fret
that human nature is sinful or fear that the milk of human kindness
will run dry”.

Silvertown uses examples from genes, bacteria, fungi, plants and
animals to emphasize that cooperation is ubiquitous in nature. For
instance, bacteria called rhizobia thrive in the root nodules of
legumes — and turn nitrogen from the air into a soluble form that
the plants can use. Some beetles cooperate to bury animal corpses that
would be too large for any single insect to manage alone, both
reducing the risk of other animals stealing food and providing a nest
for beetle families to live in.

[[link removed]]

It’s time to admit that genes are not the blueprint for life
[[link removed]]

And many bacteria indicate their presence to each other using a
chemical-signalling system called quorum sensing, which is active only
when members of the same species are tightly packed together. This
allows each cell to adjust its gene expression in a way that benefits
the individuals in the group — to release a poison to kill other
species, for instance, when enough bacteria are clustered together to
mount a decent attack.

Even eighteenth-century piracy, says Silvertown, is a good example of
effective cooperation. Pirates worked together on their ships, and
used violence more often against outsiders than as an internal
mechanism for law enforcement.

The author argues against the idea that cooperation is fundamentally
at odds with competition — a view that emerged as a consequence of
the sociobiology movement of the 1970s, in which some biologists
argued that all human behaviour is reducible to a Darwinian need to be
the ‘fittest’. The reality, as Silvertown shows, is not black and
white.

[Lichen on a wall in Ambleside, Lake District, UK.]

Lichen is a composite organism, in which an alga lives within a
fungus.Credit: Ashley Cooper/SPL

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

Take lichens, for instance — ‘composite organisms’ in which an
alga or cyanobacterium lives within a fungus. The Swiss botanist Simon
Schwendener, who discovered this relationship in the 1860s, argued
that a lichen is a parasite: “Its slaves are green algals, which it
has sought out or indeed caught hold of, and forced into its
service.” Another way to view the relationship is that these algae
and fungi are co-dependent — when they co-exist as a lichen, each
grows better than it would alone. The line between parasitism and
mutualism, competition and cooperation is not clear cut. It’s a
matter of perspective.

[[link removed]]

A ‘user’s manual for the female mammal — how women’s bodies
evolved [[link removed]]

Similarly hazy boundaries are found in the biology of our own cells.
More than a billion years ago, cells absorbed bacteria, which
eventually evolved into structures called mitochondria that generate
energy. Mitochondria are an essential part of the cells of all plants,
animals and fungi alive today. They could be considered slaves, with
cells the parasites. Or perhaps they are more like adopted family
members.

Fundamentally, Silvertown proposes, cooperation in each of these
situations stems from selfishness. Animals did not evolve to act for
the benefit of their species, but to spread their own genes.
Cooperation happens because mutual benefits are better, biologically
speaking, than working alone, as the case of lichens effectively
demonstrates.

If this seems heartless, it’s a reflection of the human tendency to
apply human moral frameworks to biological phenomena. The use of
emotionally charged words such as ‘slave’ and ‘adopted’ takes
us away from rigorous science and leads us to see biological
interactions as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, rather than as the morally
agnostic, transactional processes that they truly are.

[[link removed]]

Why reciprocity is common in humans but rare in other animals
[[link removed]]

The anthropomorphizing of biological processes is a deep and current
problem. The tendency to falsely imply agency in the natural world is
an easy trap to fall into — consider how often people might say that
a virus such as SARS-CoV-2 ‘wants’ to be transmitted, for
instance, or that ants act ‘for the good of their colony’. I would
have liked to hear more about Silvertown’s views on this category
error. But in places, I felt that he could have made his implied
understanding more explicit. Instead, he sometimes sacrifices that
carefulness for unnecessary jokes, noting, for instance, that bacteria
“are essentially singletons who like to party”.

The author could also have talked more about how the amorality
inherent in most of the natural world does not apply to humans.
Similarly to other organisms, our evolutionary heritage makes us
social, but whether that sociality is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is a
moral, not a scientific, question. This distinction from the other
cooperative processes that Silvertown outlines could have been
explained better.

_Selfish Genes to Social Beings_ is at its best in the long,
fascinating discussions of the complexity of cooperative behaviours
across the natural world. For instance, although I’ve read a lot
about biology, before reading this book I could never understand how
RNA chains might have joined together and started the process of
self-replication through which all life evolved. Silvertown can talk
as easily about the compounds making up your genes as most people can
about yesterday’s football match.

_Nature_ 628, 260-261 (2024)

_doi: [link removed]

_Jonathan R. Goodman is a research associate at Cambridge Public
Health, University of Cambridge, UK. His first book, Invisible
Rivals, will be published in 2025. Contact Jonathan R. Goodman
[[link removed]]_

_Nature is a weekly international journal publishing the finest
peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the
basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest,
timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising
conclusions. Nature also provides rapid, authoritative, insightful
and arresting news and interpretation of topical and coming trends
affecting science, scientists and the wider public._

_First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant
advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the
reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science.
Second, to ensure that the results of science are rapidly disseminated
to the public throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their
significance for knowledge, culture and daily life._

* Science
[[link removed]]
* Evolution
[[link removed]]
* cooperation
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]