Evolutionary Restraints: The Contentious History of Group Selection - Softcover

Borrello, Mark E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226067033 ISBN 13: 9780226067032

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2012

Synopsis

 

Much of the evolutionary debate since Darwin has focused on the level at which natural selection occurs. Most biologists acknowledge multiple levels of selection—from the gene to the species. The debate about group selection, however, is the focus of Mark E. Borrello’s Evolutionary Restraints.

            Tracing the history of biological attempts to determine whether selection leads to the evolution of fitter groups, Borrello takes as his focus the British naturalist V. C. Wynne-Edwards, who proposed that animals could regulate their own populations and thus avoid overexploitation of their resources. By the mid-twentieth century, Wynne-Edwards became an advocate for group selection theory and led a debate that engaged the most significant evolutionary biologists of his time, including Ernst Mayr, G. C. Williams, and Richard Dawkins. This important dialogue bled out into broader conversations about population regulation, environmental crises, and the evolution of human social behavior. By examining a single facet in the long debate about evolution, Borrello provides powerful insight into an intellectual quandary that remains relevant and alive to this day.

About this title

About the Author

Mark E. Borrello is associate professor of the history of science in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226067033
• ISBN 13: 9780226067032
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 215