[mcswell]

First, I suspect that every group you've been part of has been composed of mostly or entirely white people around your age who speak English. The contention of the book, and from what I understand that of many anthropologists and archaeologists, is that this is atypical, or at least not all that typical.

Also, the book makes a point about ephemeral leadership, either leadership (and the corresponding organization) that is seasonal according to the needs of the time of year, or temporary for a particular task (house building, field clearing, hunting...). Which may be what you're saying in the first paragraph about temporary groups, but they're saying this is the normal--or even only--situation in some cultures, and that furthermore it works just fine.

As for biologically driven choices, I suspect the authors would say that the range of choices is far greater than you might think.

[goatlover]

Only English speaking white people tend to be hierarchal? What BS is that? Have you ever been to Asia (or most of Europe)? You think Africans, Middle Easterners or South Americans don't have hierarchies? You think only white people tend to select leaders in groups without one? That's ridiculous and simply wrong. And civilization didn't begin in Europe anyway, it was the Middle East, and then cropped up in five or six separate locations across the globe, including the Americas.

[moloch-hai]

> Only English speaking white people tend to be hierarchal?

No. But all your experience in the world is in hierarchies. You have no relevant experience to draw on.

[goatlover]

That would apply to the large majority of the people on this planet for the past few thousand years.

[moloch-hai]

The "past few thousand years" is a tiny fraction of the human timeline. And, the overwhelming majority of even the "past few thousand years" is obscured. What remains is a poster example of selection bias: hierarchical organizations depend more on writing, so the written record is of hierarchical societies.