There are four letters in a later issue of Nature commenting on Nowak et al. (All of this is behind paywalls, sorry.) All of the contributors seem to agree (whether wholeheartedly admitting it or not) that inclusive fitness theory is, in effect, a theorem derivable from basic individual selection theory, not a separate principle. Nowak et al. further argue (mathematically) that the preconditions for inclusive fitness theory are rarely satisfied in practice, and that direct arguments from individual selection are a better tool for understanding the relevant phenomena.
Demathematised, one of the points Nowak et al. make is that individual fitness theory takes account only of the benefit an organism’s costly actions provides to its relatives, but not of any reciprocal benefits. It therefore underestimates the amount of cooperation one might expect to see.
Eliezer’s original article on group selection said some things that I think ought to be included in the wiki article: While the preconditions for group selection appear unlikely to hold in the wild (a similarity with inclusive fitness theory), they can be produced in the laboratory. The result of imposing selection for limited colony size of certain insects was not that the insects limited their own numbers, but that they limited each others’ within their colony, by eating their eggs and larvae.
There are four letters in a later issue of Nature commenting on Nowak et al. (All of this is behind paywalls, sorry.) All of the contributors seem to agree (whether wholeheartedly admitting it or not) that inclusive fitness theory is, in effect, a theorem derivable from basic individual selection theory, not a separate principle. Nowak et al. further argue (mathematically) that the preconditions for inclusive fitness theory are rarely satisfied in practice, and that direct arguments from individual selection are a better tool for understanding the relevant phenomena.
Demathematised, one of the points Nowak et al. make is that individual fitness theory takes account only of the benefit an organism’s costly actions provides to its relatives, but not of any reciprocal benefits. It therefore underestimates the amount of cooperation one might expect to see.
Eliezer’s original article on group selection said some things that I think ought to be included in the wiki article: While the preconditions for group selection appear unlikely to hold in the wild (a similarity with inclusive fitness theory), they can be produced in the laboratory. The result of imposing selection for limited colony size of certain insects was not that the insects limited their own numbers, but that they limited each others’ within their colony, by eating their eggs and larvae.