Re: Can cognition override natural selection?

in article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Tim Tyler at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote on 10/5/03 1:49 PM:

> Guy Hoelzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote or quoted:
> 
>> Dawkins is an extremist and a leading voice in this
>> crowd.  For example, he refers to individuals as "vehicles", and suggests
>> that they are merely convenient constructions by genes, which are used to
>> promote the selfish interests of the genes.  This view is inconsistent with
>> multilevel selection theory, which is in my view the essence of contemporary
>> selection theory and provides a more balanced and logical perspective on
>> natural selection.
> 
> I dunno about that.  Doesn't Dawkins explicitly acknowledge selection at
> the level of species?
> 
> E.g.:
> 
> ``Admittedly some advancement towards complex multidimensional adaptation
> might be achieved through species selection [...]'' - TEP, p.107.
> 
> His argument is more along the lines that species-level selection is not
> the dominant force - through being relatively slow, and only getting
> variation to operate on from the results of selection at lower levels.
> 
> He says:
> 
> ``We shall have to make a quantitative judgement taking into account
> the vastly greater cycle time between replicator deaths in the species
> selection case than in the gene selection case.''
> 
> I.e. not that species selection doesn't exist at all, but that it might
> not be the biggest player at the table.

I grant you that Dawkins pays lip service to the potential for selection at
levels other than the gene, but I think these ideas are swamped into
insignificance in his overarching themes.  I think you are giving far more
strength to the potential role of species selection than Dawkins when you
indicate that "it might not be the biggest player at the table."

Do you know whether Dawkins has ever seriously considered the possibility of
top-down effects in which selection at higher levels may constrain or guide
the outcomes of selection at lower levels?  My impression is that his
thinking is quite reductionistic in only recognizing upward paths of
causation.

Guy