This article provides an overview of work on the levels of selection in the philosophy of biology.

In this paper Wimsatt's analysis of units of selection is taken as defining the units of selection question. A definition of levels of selection is offered and it is shown that the levels of selection question is quite different from the units of selection question. Some of the relations between units and levels are briefly explored. It is argued that the levels of selection question is the question relevant to explanatory (...) concerns, and it is suggested that it is the question relevant to ontological concerns. (shrink)

Debates concerning the units and levels of selection have persisted for over fifty years. One major question in this literature is whether units and levels of selection are genuine, in the sense that they are objective features of the world, or merely reflect the interests and goals of an observer. Scientists and philosophers have proposed a range of answers to this question. This Element introduces this literature and proposes a novel contribution. It defends a realist stance (...) and offers a way of delineating genuine levels of selection by invoking the notion of a functional unit. (shrink)

For a number of years, the debate in evolutionary biology over the ’levels of selection’ has attracted intense interest from philosophers of science. The main question concerns the level of the biological hierarchy at which natural selection occurs. Does selection act on organisms, genes, groups, colonies, demes, species, or some combination of these? According to traditional Darwinian theory the answer is the organism -- it is the differential survival and reproduction of individual organisms that drives the (...) evolutionary process. But there are alternative views too, including pluralist views which say that the choice between different levels of selection is often a matter of perspective, not empirical fact. (shrink)

Understanding good design requires addressing the question of what units undergo natural selection, thereby becoming adapted. There is, therefore, a natural connection between the formal Darwinism project (which aims to connect population genetics with the evolution of design and fitness maximization) and levels of selection issues. We argue that the formal Darwinism project offers contradictory and confusing lines of thinking concerning level(s) of selection. The project favors multicellular organisms over both the lower (cell) and higher (social (...) group) levels as the level of adaptation. Grafen offers four reasons for giving such special status to multicellular organisms: (1) they lack appreciable within-organism cell selection, (2) they have multiple features that appear contrived for the same purpose, (3) they possess a set of phenotypes, and (4) they leave offspring according to their phenotypes. We discuss why these rationales are not compelling and suggest that a more even-handed approach, in which multicellular organisms are not assumed to have special status, would be desirable for a project that aims to make progress on the foundations of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Microbes are generally thought of as unicellular organisms, but we know that many microbes live as parts of biofilms—complex, surface-attached microbial communities numbering millions of cells. Some authors have recently argued in favour of reconceiving biofilms as biological entities in their own right. In particular, some have claimed that multispecies biofilms are evolutionary individuals : 10126–10132 2015). Against this view, I defend the conservative consensus that selection acts primarily upon microbial cells.

In this paper I argue against the claim, recently put forward by some philosophers of biology and evolutionary biologists, that there can be two or more ontologically distinct levels of selection. I show by comparing the fitness of individuals with that of collectives of individuals in the same environment and over the same period of time – as required to decide if one or more levels of selection is acting in a population – that the (...) class='Hi'>selection of collectives is a by-product of selection at the individual level; thus, talking about two or more levels of selection represents merely a different perspective on one and the same process. (shrink)

What changes when an evolutionary transition in individuality takes place? Many different answers have been given, in respect of different cases of actual transition, but some have suggested a general answer: that a major transition is a change in the extent to which selection acts at one hierarchical level rather than another. The current paper evaluates some different ways to develop this general answer as a way to characterise the property ‘evolutionary individuality’; and offers a justification of the option (...) taken in Clarke :413–435, 2013)—to define evolutionary individuality in terms of an object’s capacity to undergo selection at its own level. In addition, I suggest a method by which the property can be measured and argue that a problem which is often considered to be fatal to that method—the problem of ‘cross-level by-products’—can be avoided. (shrink)

Does natural selection act primarily on individual organisms, on groups, on genes, or on whole species? The question of levels of selection - on which biologists and philosophers have long disagreed - is central to evolutionary theory and to the philosophy of biology. Samir Okasha's comprehensive analysis gives a clear account of the philosophical issues at stake in the current debate.

This paper distinguishes and critiques several forms of pluralism about the levels of selection, and introduces a novel way of thinking about the biological properties and processes typically conceptualized in terms of distinct levels. In particular, "levels" should be thought of as being entwined or fused. Since the pluralism discussed is held by divergent theorists, the argument has implications for many positions in the debate over the units of selection. And since the key points on (...) which the paper turns apply beyond this specific issue, the paper may prove of general interest in thinking about the metaphysics of science. (shrink)

The levels of selection problem was central to Maynard Smith’s work throughout his career. This paper traces Maynard Smith’s views on the levels of selection, from his objections to group selection in the 1960s to his concern with the major evolutionary transitions in the 1990s. The relations between Maynard Smith’s position and those of Hamilton and G.C. Williams are explored, as is Maynard Smith’s dislike of the Price equation approach to multi-level selection. Maynard Smith’s (...) account of the ‘core Darwinian principles’ is discussed, as is his debate with Sober and Wilson (1998) over the status of trait-group models, and his attitude to the currently fashionable concept of pluralism about the levels of selection. (shrink)

In The Levels of Selection (Brandon, 1984), Robert Brandon provides a suggestive but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to use the probabilistic notion ofscreening off in providing a schema for dealing with an aspect of the units of selection question in the philosophy of biology. I characterize that failure, and suggest a revision and expansion of Brandon's account which addresses its key shortcoming.

Individual and group selection are usually conceived as opposed evolutionary processes. Though cases of synergy are occasionally recognized, the evolutionary importance of synergy is largely ignored. However, synergy is the plausible explanation for the evolution of collectives as higher level individuals i.e., collectives acting as adaptive units, e.g., genomes and colonies of social insects. It rests on the suppression of the predictable tendency of evolutionary units to benefit at the expense of other units or of the wholes they contribute (...) to build. It plausibly explains human cooperation and morality: the molding of human groups into adaptive units. (shrink)

Selection operates at many levels. Some of the most obvious cases are organismic, such as changes in coloration under the influence of predation (cf. Kettlewell 1973; also Endler 1986). It also operates at other levels. Meiotic drive involves selection for a gene, independently of its effect on the organism. At a higher level, there may also be selection for patterns of colony growth in social insects, again under the influence of predation (cf. Wilson 1971). The (...) appropriate level of selection is a matter of the causal patterns exhibited, or the target of selection. It can also be understood as a question of the appropriate level at which to seek explanatory laws.Robert Brandon (1982, 1990) first clearly distinguished the question of the level of selection from debates over the units of selection. In doing so, he argued that the phenotype is commonly the target of selection, whatever the unit of selection might be. (shrink)

Two major clarifications have greatly abetted the understanding and fruitful expansion of the theory of natural selection in recent years: the acknowledgment that interactors, not replicators, constitute the causal unit of selection; and the recognition that interactors are Darwinian individuals, and that such individuals exist with potency at several levels of organization (genes, organisms, demes, and species in particular), thus engendering a rich hierarchical theory of selection in contrast with Darwin’s own emphasis on the organismic level. (...) But a piece of the argument has been missing, and individuals at levels distinct from organisms have been denied potency (although granted existence within the undeniable logic of the theory), because they do not achieve individuality with the same devices used by organisms and therefore seem weak by comparison. We show here that different features define Darwinian individuality across scales of size and time. In particular, species-individuals may develop few emergent features as direct adaptations. The interactor approach works with emergent fitnesses, not with emergent features; and species, as a consequence of their different mechanism for achieving individuality (reproductive exclusivity among subparts, that is, among organisms), express many effects from other levels. Organisms, by contrast, suppress upwardly cascading effects, because the organismic style of individuality (by functional integration of subparts) does not permit much competition or differential reproduction of parts from within. Species do not suppress the operation of lower levels; such effects therefore become available as exaptations conferring emergent fitness—a primary source of the different strength that species achieve as effective Darwinian individuals in evolution. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Historical Remarks The Gene's Eye View of Evolution Group Selection and Kin Selection Species Selection and Macroevolution Multilevel Selection Theory and the Major Transitions in Evolution Conclusion References Further Reading.

The levels of selection debate is generally taken to be a debate about how natural selection can occur at the various levels of biological organization. In this paper, we argue that questions about levels of selection should be analyzed separately from questions about levels of organization. In the deflationary proposal we defend, all that is necessary for multilevel selection is that there are cases in which particles are nested in collectives, and that (...) both the collectives and the particles that compose them each separately undergo natural selection. We argue that adopting this deflationary account helps to disentangle the levels of selection and the levels of organization, and thereby contributes to advancing the levels of selection debate. (shrink)

The theory of evolution by natural selection is, perhaps, the crowning intellectual achievement of the biological sciences. There is, however, considerable debate about which entity or entities are selected and what it is that fits them for that role. This article aims to clarify what is at issue in these debates by identifying four distinct, though often confused, concerns and then identifying how the debates on what constitute the units of selection depend to a significant degree on which (...) of these four questions a thinker regards as central. (shrink)

I discuss two subjects in Samir Okasha’s excellent book, Evolution and the Levels of Selection. In consonance with Okasha’s critique of the conventionalist view of the units of selection problem, I argue that conventionalists have not attended to what realists mean by group, individual, and genic selection. In connection with Okasha’s discussion of the Price equation and contextual analysis, I discuss whether the existence of these two quantitative frameworks is a challenge to realism.

Most attempts to answer the question of whether populations of groups can undergo natural selection focus on properties of the groups themselves rather than the dynamics of the population. Those approaches to group selection that do emphasize dynamics lack an account of the relevant notion of equivalent dynamics. I present a new approach to identifying instances of evolution by natural selection that is based upon dynamical symmetries. I apply the symmetry method to arrive at an affirmative but (...) qualified answer to the question of group selection. (shrink)

This paper compares two well-known arguments in the units of selection literature, one due to , the other due to . Both arguments concern the legitimacy of averaging fitness values across contexts and making inferences about the level of selection on that basis. The first three sections of the paper shows that the two arguments are incompatible if taken at face value, their apparent similarity notwithstanding. If we accept Sober and Lewontin's criterion for when averaging genic fitnesses across (...) diploid genotypes is illegitmate, we cannot accept Sober and Wilson's criterion for when averaging individual fitnesses across groups is illegitimate, and vice versa. The final section suggests a possible way of reconciling the two arguments, by invoking an ambiguity in the concept of genic selection. (shrink)

Selection operates at many levels. Robert Brandon has distinguished the question of the level of selection from the unit of selection, arguing that the phenotype is commonly the target of selection, whatever the unit of selection might be. He uses "screening off" as a criterion for distinguishing the level of selection. Cave animals show a common morphological pattern which includes hypertrophy of some structures and reduction or loss of others. In a study of (...) a cave dwelling crustacean, Gammarus minus, we find evidence for selection for both increased antennal size and reduction of eyes. The genetic structure of the population does not support the view that the phenotype screens off the genotype in explaining the differences in fitness. Nonetheless, the results do indicate that the level of selection is at least at the level of the phenotype in both cases. (shrink)

Group-structured populations, of the kind prominent in discussions of multilevel selection, are contrasted with ‘neighbor-structured’ populations. I argue that it is a necessary condition on multilevel description of a selection process that there should be a nonarbitrary division of the population into equivalence classes (or an approximation to this situation). The discussion is focused via comparisons between two famous problem cases involving group structure (altruism and heterozygote advantage) and two neighbor-structured cases that resemble them. Conclusions are also drawn (...) about the role of correlated interaction in the evolution of altruism. 1 Introduction 2 Two Kinds of Population Structure 3 Objections and Replies 4 Particles on a Line 5 Conclusion Appendix: Neighborhoods and Selection CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The debate about the levels of selection has been one of the most controversial both in evolutionary biology and in philosophy of science. Okasha’s book makes the sort of contribution that simply will not be able to be ignored by anyone interested in this field for many years to come. However, my interest here is in highlighting some examples of how Okasha goes about discussing his material to suggest that his book is part of an increasingly interesting trend (...) that sees scientists and philosophers coming together to build a broadened concept of “theory” through a combination of standard mathematical treatments and conceptual analyses. Given the often contentious history of the relationship between philosophy and science, such trend cannot but be welcome. (shrink)

Most attempts to answer the question of whether populations of groups can undergo natural selection focus on properties of the groups themselves rather than the dynamics of the population of groups. Those approaches to group selection that do emphasize dynamics lack an account of the relevant notion of equivalent dynamics. I show that the theory of ‘dynamical kinds’ I proposed in Jantzen :3617–3646, 2014) can be used as a framework for assessing dynamical equivalence. That theory is based upon (...) the notion of a dynamical symmetry, a transformation of a system that commutes with its evolution through time. In the proposed framework, structured sets of dynamical symmetries are used to pick out equivalence classes of systems. These classes are large enough to encompass the range of phenomena we associate with natural selection, yet restrictive enough to guarantee a sort of causal homogeneity. By characterizing dynamical kinds via symmetry structures in this way, the question of levels of selection becomes a precise question about which populations respect the dynamical symmetries of Darwinian evolution. Standard population genetic models suggest that populations undergoing evolution by natural selection are partially characterized by a group of fitness-scaling symmetries. I demonstrate conditions under which these symmetries may be satisfied by populations of individuals, populations of groups of individuals, or both simultaneously. (shrink)

Doolittle :351–378, 2013) and Ereshefsky and Pedroso argue that selection can act at the level of biofilms and other microbial communities. Clarke is skeptical and argues that selection acts on microbial cells rather than microbial communities. Her main criticism is that biofilms lack one of the ingredients required for selection to operate: heritability. This paper replies to her concern by elaborating how biofilm-level traits can be inheritable.

Anthology of eleven essays by mathematician Hermann Weyl, originally published 1930s-50s.

The debate about the levels of selection has been one of the most controversial both in evolutionary biology and in philosophy of science. Okasha’s book makes the sort of contribution that simply will not be able to be ignored by anyone interested in this field for many years to come. However, my interest here is in highlighting some examples of how Okasha goes about discussing his material to suggest that his book is part of an increasingly interesting trend (...) that sees scientists and philosophers coming together to build a broadened concept of “theory” through a combination of standard mathematical treatments and conceptual analyses. Given the often contentious history of the relationship between philosophy and science, such trend cannot but be welcome. (shrink)

Levels of organization are structures in nature, usually defined by part-whole relationships, with things at higher levels being composed of things at the next lower level. Typical levels of organization that one finds in the literature include the atomic, molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, organismal, group, population, community, ecosystem, landscape, and biosphere levels. References to levels of organization and related hierarchical depictions of nature are prominent in the life sciences and their philosophical study, and appear not (...) only in introductory textbooks and lectures, but also in cutting-edge research articles and reviews. In philosophy, perennial debates such as reduction, emergence, mechanistic explanation, interdisciplinary relations, natural selection, and many other topics, also rely substantially on the notion. -/- Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the notion, levels of organization have received little explicit attention in biology or its philosophy. Usually they appear in the background as an implicit conceptual framework that is associated with vague intuitions. Attempts at providing general and broadly applicable definitions of levels of organization have not met wide acceptance. In recent years, several authors have put forward localized and minimalistic accounts of levels, and others have raised doubts about the usefulness of the notion as a whole. -/- There are many kinds of ‘levels’ that one may find in philosophy, science, and everyday life—the term is notoriously ambiguous. Besides levels of organization, there are levels of abstraction, realization, being, analysis, processing, theory, science, complexity, and many others. In this article, the focus will be on levels of organization and debates associated with them, and other kinds of levels will only be discussed when they are relevant to this main topic. (shrink)

The ‘levels of selection’ question is one of the most fundamental in evolutionary biology, for it arises directly from the logic of Darwinism. As is well-known, the principle of natural selection is entirely abstract; it says that any entities satisfying certain conditions will evolve by natural selection, whatever those entities are. (These conditions are: variability, associated fitness differences, and heritability (cf. Lewontin 1970).) This fact, when combined with the fact that the biological world is hierarchically structured, (...) i.e. smaller biological units are nested within larger ones, gives rise to the levels of selection question. For in principle, entities at many different hierarchical levels, above and below that of the ‘individual organism’, (e.g. gene, chromosome, cell, kin group, colony, lineage, species) can satisfy the requirements for Darwinian evolution. This possibility has long been recognised by biologists, from Darwin himself to contemporary proponents of ‘multi-level selection’; and there exist numerous biological phenomena which suggest that it has actually occurred. (shrink)

The group selection controversy largely focuses on altruism (e.g., Wilson 1983; Lloyd 2001; Shavit 2004; Okasha 2006, 173ff; Borrello 2010; Leigh 2010; Rosas 2010; Hamilton and Dimond in press). Multilevel selection theory is a resolution of this controversy. Whereas kin selection partitions inclusive fitness into direct and indirect components (via influencing the replication of copies of genes in other individuals), multilevel selection considers within-group and between-group components of fitness (Gardner et al. 2011; Lion et al. 2011). (...) Two scenarios of multilevel selection are often distinguished (Damuth and Heisler 1988; Okasha 2006; Pigliucci 2010): (1) group structure only divides individual fitnesses into within- and between-group components (MLS1); and, (2) groups get their own component of fitness and also, in most definitions, a group-level adaptation (MLS2). (shrink)

Sober (1992) has recently evaluated Brandon's (1982, 1990; see also 1985, 1988) use of Salmon's (1971) concept of screening-off in the philosophy of biology. He critiques three particular issues, each of which will be considered in this discussion.

Activity anorexia illustrates selection of behavior at the biological, behavioral, and neural levels. Based on evolutionary history, food depletion increases the reinforcement value of physical activity that, in turn, decreases the reinforcement effectiveness of eating – resulting in activity anorexia. Neural opiates participate in the selection of physical activity during periods of food depletion.

The reductionistic vision of evolutionary theory, "the gene's eye view of evolution" is the dominant view among evolutionary biologists today. On this view, the gene is the only unit with sufficient stability to act as a unit of selection, with individuals and groups being more ephemeral units of function, but not of selection. This view is argued to be incorrect, on several grounds. The empirical and theoretical bases for the existence of higher-level units of selection are explored, (...) and alternative analyses discussed critically. The success of a multi-level selection theory demands the recognition and development of a multi-level genetics. The way to accomplish this is suggested. The genotype/phenotype distinction also requires further analysis to see how it applies at higher levels of organization. This analysis provides a way of defining genotype and phenotype for cultural evolution, and a treatment of the innate-acquired distinction which are both generalizeable to analyze problems of the nature and focus of scientific change. (shrink)

Activity anorexia illustrates selection of behavior at the biological, behavioral, and neural levels. Based on evolutionary history, food depletion increases the reinforcement value of physical activity that, in turn, decreases the reinforcement effectiveness of eating – resulting in activity anorexia. Neural opiates participate in the selection of physical activity during periods of food depletion.

Implications of the Level of Dogmatism and Selected Psychosocial Conditions for a Propensity for Risky Behaviour among the Soldiers of the Polish Army Land Forces The article presents the results of a study concerning a propensity for risky behaviour, conducted on regular soldiers of the Polish Army Land Forces. Its aim was to verify whether a level of dogmatism and selected psychosocial conditions were related to a propensity for risky behaviour among the soldiers. The research partially confirmed the hypothesis of (...) psychosocial determinants of a propensity for such behaviour. Young and shortserving soldiers appeared to be more inclined to undertake risky behaviour than older and long-serving ones. A tendency to avoid risky behaviour was displayed by soldiers from small towns as compared to groups of respondents from larger towns. The results of the research did not indicate a significant relationship between the propensity for risky behaviour and the level of dogmatism, education, personal corps, professional position. (shrink)

Proponents of genic selectionism have claimed that evolutionary processes normally viewed as selection on individuals can be "represented" as selection on alleles. This paper discusses the relationship between mathematical questions about the formal requirements upon state spaces necessary for the representation of different types of evolutionary processes and causal questions about the units of selection in such processes.