[lambdapie]

Can someone qualified comment on whether group selection is taken seriously among biologists now? I haven't followed the debate much but Dawkins at least has argued that group selection acts too slowly compared to individual selection to be an important force in evolution.

In either case I don't think it has much bearing on Amazon. In both cases evolution is just a metaphor/scienciness.

[a_bonobo]

Dawkins introduced selection on the individual level in The Selfish Gene (great book, before he became all ranty and weird). This has pretty much killed group selection, but EO Wilson is still clinging on. I think his latest book was a bit too much cherry-picking in defense of group selection for some people.

A few years back Steven Pinker wrote a thing about the "false allure" of group selection based on muddy definitions: http://edge.org/conversation/steven_pinker-the-false-allure-...

Jerry Coyne summarised the debate in NYRB: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/books/review/the-neighborh...