Group-Selection for ‘Goodness’? An Account of Chickens, a Comparison with Plants, and Implications for Humans

ABSTRACT

Can ‘goodness’ evolve in humans through group-selection? It can, according to a new book, Evolution For Everyone, which claims support for this possibility from a recent research program involving artificial group-selection in chickens. Data from this study, showing increased egg production across generations, are interpreted as a product of the evolution of good, cooperative behaviour among hens. In this commentary, I propose that there is a more parsimonious and more plausible interpretation for these results involving something much less noble – a system of dominance and subordination, where maximization of egg production across generations resulted from selection that increased the relative frequency of subordinate ‘crumb-collector’ hens that passively tolerate domination by relatively few aggressive ‘strongpluckers’. Evidence for such dominance/suppression effects in maximizing group productivity is common in vegetation where most coexisting plants are relatively small and highly suppressed by a few larger ones, and where high productivity is interpreted by plant ecologists, not in terms of any group-selection effects, but rather in terms of traditional individual Darwinian natural selection favouring tolerance of resource deprivation, reproductive economy, and complementary resource use strategies.