Borrello Mark E
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 100 Ecology Building, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, St Paul, MN 55108, USA.
Endeavour. 2005 Mar;29(1):43-7. doi: 10.1016/j.endeavour.2004.11.003.
The changing fate of group selection theory illustrates nicely the importance of studying the history of science. It was Charles Darwin that first used something like group selection to explain how natural selection could give rise to altruistic behavior and moral instinct. These instincts could be accommodated by his theory of evolution, he argued, if they had evolved 'for the good of the community'. By the 1960s, group selection had a new and vocal advocate in V.C. Wynne-Edwards. But this gave critics of the theory that selection might act on groups, rather than at the level of individuals or genes, a definable target, and from the mid-1960s to the 1980s group selection was considered the archetypal example of flawed evolutionary thinking. However, at the end of the 20th century ideas of group selection re-emerged as an important component of a multilevel theory of evolution.
群体选择理论不断变化的命运很好地说明了研究科学史的重要性。是查尔斯·达尔文首先运用类似群体选择的观点来解释自然选择如何能够产生利他行为和道德本能。他认为，如果这些本能是“为了群体的利益”而进化的，那么它们就能与他的进化理论相契合。到了20世纪60年代，V.C. 怀恩 - 爱德华兹成为群体选择的一位新的、积极的倡导者。但这给了该理论的批评者一个明确的靶子，他们认为选择可能作用于群体，而非个体或基因层面，从20世纪60年代中期到80年代，群体选择被视为有缺陷的进化思维的典型例子。然而，在20世纪末，群体选择的观点作为多层次进化理论的一个重要组成部分再度出现。
