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Ebook Genesis The Deep Origin of Societies Edward O Wilson Books

Product details Hardcover 160 pages Publisher Liveright; 1 edition (March 19, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1631495542

Genesis The Deep Origin of Societies Edward O Wilson Books Reviews

• Genesis is E.O. Wilson’s explicit effort to ground human culture in a scientific framework. Taking its title from the Bible, Wilson develops a theory of how eusociality has developed in a small number of species ultimately leading to intelligence in modern humanity. Though he seems more concerned to replace traditional religious explanations of human origins, I believe his theories are also an attack on postmodern theories of human culture.
  
  Essentially Wilson argues that eusociality, or the phenomenon of altruism among some members of a tribe, evolves because of a change from raising young who establish new colonies to raising young who stay in the same nest. This leads to genetic changes allowing for intra-group roles and some elements of the species to sacrifice personal reproduction for the good of the group. Thus, much of the book is devoted to detailing this phenomenon among insects and then following this with a similar speculation on the precursors of Homo Sapiens. The standard arguments for group selection, that it enables cooperative tribes to out-evolve uncooperative individuals, are discussed as well.
  
  Each reader can assess these arguments for themselves. Obviously group selection isn’t universally accepted among biologists and Wilson acknowledges that genetic eusociality among humans is arguable as well. But Wilson should be commended for, along with other writers, pulling evolutionary biology out of the ivory tower and seeing the full ramifications of these theories if they became part of the standard curriculum.
  
  The one hesitation about recommending this book is that it is more of an essay than a fully fledged work coming in at 125 pages. In addition, it ends abruptly with a reference to a scientific study. It’s not that having a proper conclusion is necessary, it’s that it’s a sign that the book is somewhat rushed and incomplete. I have to admit that after finishing I had to recollect the arguments dispersed throughout the book to make complete sense of it.
  
  All in all, however, it’s marked by Wilson’s typically clear prose and makes for a good read as well as an engaging argument. I personally came away less convinced than Wilson that modern biology has achieved a new Genesis but that’s merely a non-biologist’s opinion. Worthwhile reading for scientists, philosophers and anyone who is interested in the origins of humanity.
• Genesis the deep origin of societies.
  Edward O. Wilson
  2019
  Liveright Pub. Co. (W.W. Norton & Co.)
  153 pp
  $15.88
  
  Reviewed by Clara B. Jones, Ph.D.
  
  Social evolution is an important topic of investigation by behavioral ecologists and evolutionary biologists. The two categories of sociality, cooperation and altruism (Hamilton 1964), have arisen infrequently across animal groups because, in propitious environmental regimes, group-level coordination and control is usually derailed by “cheaters” who fail to comply with group norms. As Wilson pointed out in 1971, groups of cooperators and altruists characterize the most “successful” (i.e., widely distributed) extant terrestrial taxa—social insects and humans. In his new book, Genesis [sic], the entomologist, America's premier social biologist, assesses the emergence of eusociality, the highest social “grade” (Wilson 1971). Perhaps the primary contribution of this brief book is that Wilson classifies humans as eusocial, a system characterized by overlap of generations, cooperative brood-care, and non-reproductive "helpers." If Wilson is correct, humans would be classified, "primitively" eusocial (Wilson, 1971), since most human "helpers" (except post-menopausal females or other sterile persons) are expected to be "totipotent"—"helpers" capable of independent reproduction, able to reverse their non-reproductive status. Members of permanently sterile “castes,” are labeled, “advanced” eusocial (Wilson, 1971), and Wilson's treatments in this book suggest to me that he might be inclined to label permanently non-reproductive human groups as “caste”-like.
  
  The first five chapters of Genesis include limited explications of some topics (e.g., “multi-level” selection, “phenotypic plasticity”). Wilson clearly explains that the conceptual frameworks of Genesis are Maynard Smith & Szathmáry's (1995) classic treatment of “major transitions of evolution,” as well as, “multi-level” and “group selection,” terms used interchangeably. In Chapter 6, Wilson appears to be primarily interested in proffering a defense for Charles Darwin's explanation for the evolution of sterile castes—an argument based on group selection which Wilson defines as follows "...within groups, selfish individuals win against altruists, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals" [attributed to David Sloan Wilson]. Here and throughout the book, Wilson fails to incorporate the ecological literature showing, for example, that intragroup competition is generally stronger than intergroup competition or that behavioral ecologists have, since the early 1990s, advanced general criteria for the evolution of cooperative groups (Emlen 1982) and of eusociality (e.g., Crespi 1994; also see, Choe & Crespi 1997). More specifically, Wilson fails to cite other researchers who have advanced the idea that humans are eusocial (e.g., Foster & Ratnieks 2005, Jones 2011, Crespi 2014). Nonetheless, combined with related studies (e.g., Emlen 1982, Emlen 1984, Hrdy 2011), there seems to be an expanding literature justifying systematic and quantitative investigation of eusociality in humans, in particular, and in vertebrates, broadly, including, standardization of terminology, experiments, and modeling (e.g., “agent-based” modeling). For an early, published paper that might generate ideas for these future projects, Lotka (1928) is suggested.
  
  The final chapter (7), titled, “The human story,” reviews “transitions” to eusociality across apes, from chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), as well as, bonobos (P. paniscus) continuing to Australopithecus and the Homo line. Unlike other chapters, this one emphasizes the importance of ecological factors (habitat) for the evolution of social mechanisms among hominids and their ancestors, and Wilson endorses the “social brain hypothesis” as well as the importance of fire for the “rapid evolution” of large brains and the facilitation of group-life, respectively—as well as, their consequent adaptations. Interestingly, in this chapter (p 114), the author compares human eusociality to other social mammals, in particular, African wild dogs, demonstrating that he is prepared to classify “other mammal species,” eusocial, in addition to the social mole rats.
  
  Wilson does not dismiss “kin selection;” but, he holds that “multi-level” or “group” selection is the primary driver of the route to eusociality, behind which kin effects may follow. Most social biologists are certain to be surprised to read Wilson's claims that "Hamilton's Rule" suffers "fatal weaknesses" and is no longer "useful." Wilson does not support these flippant statements with mainstream literature about which there is wide consensus in favor of Hamilton's Rule, and nowhere in his text does he assess assumptions underlying considerations of differential benefits to recipients of social behavior (cooperation or altruism) or differential costs to "donors," terms subsumed in Hamilton's Rule (see, for example, Bourke 2011, Marshall 2015). Related to this, Wilson all but completely avoids optimality [cost-benefit] thinking, and social biologists will, I think, find his explication of group selection obfuscating when applied to genetics, including the assertion that population geneticists have shown the verity of group selection. Nonetheless, researchers, including, evolutionary psychologists, human biologists, and anthropologists, will derive many testable hypotheses from Wilson's claims, among the more provocative of them, the statement that division of labor by human professional categories is evidence of eusociality and group selection. I am led to wonder if some human guilds might be characterized by high r (coefficient of relationship), a possibility that would be easy to test.
  
  In service to economy, organization, and clarity, Genesis might have been more wisely presented as a "tight" technical paper rather than a manifesto in book form, though Wilson deserves to be applauded for advancing bold ideas, for insisting that human social behavior be subjected to the same analyses that we apply to non-human animals, and that, ultimately, evolutionary explanations will need to be "gene-centered," a long-standing hallmark of Wilson's approach (e.g., Wilson 1975) and that of the heralded evolutionary biologist, Robert Trivers (see Trivers 1985). I recommend this creative and controversial text to specialists, students, and the general audience. It will raise many questions, stimulate thought, and, hopefully, generate conversations and research about variations in human socio-sexual units, as well as, the origins and evolution, the causes and consequences, of group life across all vertebrates.
  
  References
  Bourke AFG (2011) Principles of social evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  Choe JC, Crespi BJ (1997) The evolution of social behavior in insects and arachnids. Cambridge University Press, London.
  Crespi BJ (1994) Three conditions for the evolution of eusociality are they sufficient? Insectes Sociaux 41(4) 395-400.
  Crespi BJ (2014) The insectan apes. Human Nature 25(1) 6-27.
  Emlen ST (1982) The evolution of helping I an ecological constraints model. American Naturalist 119 29-39.
  Emlen ST (1984) Cooperative breeding in birds and mammals. Pp 305-339 in Behavioral ecology an evolutionary approach, 2nd ed. (JR Krebs, NB Davies, eds.). Sinauer, Sunderland, MA.
  Foster KR, Ratnieks FLW (2005) A new eusocial vertebrate? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20(7) 363-364.
  Hamilton WD (1964) The genetical evolution of social behavior. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7 1-52.
  Hrdy SB (2011) Mothers and others. Belknap-Harvard.
  Jones CB (2011). Are humans cooperative breeders? A call for research. Archives of Sexual Behavior 40(3) 479-481.
  Lotka AJ (1928) Sterility in American marriages. PNAS 14(1) 99-108.
  Marshall JAR (2015) Social evolution and inclusive fitness theory an introduction. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
  Maynard Smith J, Szathmáry E (1995) The major transitions of evolution. W.H. Freeman Spektrum, New York.
  Trivers RL (1985) Social evolution. Benjamin-Cummings Pub. Co., San Francisco.
  Wilson EO (1971) The insect societies. Belknap/Harvard, Cambridge, MA.
  ----(1975) Sociobiology. Belknap/Harvard, Cambridge, MA.
  
  Clara B. Jones is a retired behavioral ecologist living in Silver Spring, MD (USA). Among other works, she is author of The evolution of mammalian sociality in an ecological perspective (2014, Springer, NY).
• This survey requires of the reader a fairly detailed knowledge of the various species genera and families as well as some familiarity with the Eons and eras of the earth's history. The genetic exposition requires expertise and I was left with not knowing whether epigenetic expression was accounted for.
• A quite succinct version of Wilson, but didn't deliver philosophically as intended. The science was there, but the ending felt abrupt as he didn't conclusively close his beginning remarks.
• E. O. Wilson is a national treasurer and always has fascinating insights. This book for all its brevity is still pretty heady as it discusses evolution and examples of eusocial behavior, the relation between altruism and individualism, and the realm of sociobiology.
  
  I wish it were a little more polemical or overtly educational, reiterating and summarizing points, with some chapters losing the forest for the trees or coming to and end with the point seemingly lost. Fascinating evidence and its conclusions is sometimes only given a quick nod. But it is thought-provoking, with this paraphrase of Wilson's colleague (no relation) David Sloan Wilson being my favorite "with groups, selfish individuals win against altruists, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals" (p. 87). A re-reading might clear things up, and this book is, regardless, well worth reading.
• As an insect biologist, Wilson is the man to tell you about social animals. Altruisism is rare, but it started with insects. Understanding our success as a species is what this book is about. A real scientist explains what YouTube contributors should read. Be careful when psuedo scientists say scientists don't know stuff.