I’m not sure I understand why you say it can’t be group selection. It seems perfectly possible to me, albeit much rarer than individual selection.
Suppose all the tribes of humans (or monkeys, for that matter) on earth were populated by perfectly rational sociopaths. Then suppose an individual mutant developed a conscience. If this mutant gets lucky and passes his or her genes on a good number of times, you might end up with a tribe of people with consciences. This tribe would have an enormous advantages over the other sociopathic tribes, and would almost certainly out-perform them if other variables were roughly equal.
I think the same argument can be made for memes and religion. If people believe some god in the sky is watching them, they are less likely to perform socially destructive behavior (like theft or violence when they can get away with it). Thus, societies who practiced this sort of self-deception would be more successful than ones which did not. Yes it would be rare for an entire tribe to adopt these beliefs (for individuals its a prisoner’s dilemma), but once it happened that tribe would have a huge advantage over tribes of sociopaths.
I’m not sure I understand why you say it can’t be group selection. It seems perfectly possible to me, albeit much rarer than individual selection.
Suppose all the tribes of humans (or monkeys, for that matter) on earth were populated by perfectly rational sociopaths. Then suppose an individual mutant developed a conscience. If this mutant gets lucky and passes his or her genes on a good number of times, you might end up with a tribe of people with consciences. This tribe would have an enormous advantages over the other sociopathic tribes, and would almost certainly out-perform them if other variables were roughly equal.
I think the same argument can be made for memes and religion. If people believe some god in the sky is watching them, they are less likely to perform socially destructive behavior (like theft or violence when they can get away with it). Thus, societies who practiced this sort of self-deception would be more successful than ones which did not. Yes it would be rare for an entire tribe to adopt these beliefs (for individuals its a prisoner’s dilemma), but once it happened that tribe would have a huge advantage over tribes of sociopaths.