Imagine a gene that caused 9⁄10 of the humans who have it to be twice as fertility and attractiveness as the population that did not have it, while 1⁄10 of the humans who have it can’t reproduce at all.
this is means that the allele (genetic variant) increase fitness by a factor of 1.8. this is not a “species level” benefit in anything but a tautological way. higher levels of selection or dynamic processes are only interesting if they can not be reduced down to a lower level. e.g., you can increase the fitness of the group by simply increasing the fitness of individuals which compose the group. this increases the fitness of the group, but it is easily reduced toward increasing the fitness of individuals. in other cases you can not decompose the group fitness to individuals and so there is grounds for saying that the excess fitness which is gained by having a group, or evaluating a group, is something that is “for the good of the group.”
to use a sports analogy, if you brought together an all-star team you’d get a better team, not because of the team dynamics but because the individual players are so much better. in contrast, ther are teams which are very good because of group dynamics where utility players can specialize in their roles and synergistically perform far better than they might as individuals.
Imagine a gene that caused 9⁄10 of the humans who have it to be twice as fertility and attractiveness as the population that did not have it, while 1⁄10 of the humans who have it can’t reproduce at all.
this is means that the allele (genetic variant) increase fitness by a factor of 1.8. this is not a “species level” benefit in anything but a tautological way. higher levels of selection or dynamic processes are only interesting if they can not be reduced down to a lower level. e.g., you can increase the fitness of the group by simply increasing the fitness of individuals which compose the group. this increases the fitness of the group, but it is easily reduced toward increasing the fitness of individuals. in other cases you can not decompose the group fitness to individuals and so there is grounds for saying that the excess fitness which is gained by having a group, or evaluating a group, is something that is “for the good of the group.”
to use a sports analogy, if you brought together an all-star team you’d get a better team, not because of the team dynamics but because the individual players are so much better. in contrast, ther are teams which are very good because of group dynamics where utility players can specialize in their roles and synergistically perform far better than they might as individuals.