Eliezer is trying to cure people of defaulting to a group selection that seems to be, in the imagination of the regular educated audience, stronger than individual organism (let alone gene!) level selection.
I’m kind of tired of this discussion since I’ve read a lot of stuff on the subject and while in my opinion Eliezer may be wrong on a minor point or two or has perhaps miscommunicated a few more, people are spending a lot of time nitpicking something that is to the first approximation accurate and works great as a cure. A few of them are just being good LWers and do so in good faith but a few others seem driven by a desperate desire to rescue as much of the good fuzzy feeling group selection can bring.
I apologize if this is too harsh, but I felt it needs to be said, especially now that we have a large influx of new LWers (I wouldn’t go nearly as far but a few have even spoken of an Eternal September ), some of which are not yet even near to being as less wrong on this as Eliezer’s original article is.
Note: I say this as someone who had a quite good (and not totally uninformed) opinion of group selection at one point.
After his posting in September, I can’t agree with that. He flat out stated that “group selection cannot exist”. For a group of people who are supposed to demand that their beliefs pay rent, and that we not attribute weight to beliefs based on who they come from, defending Eliezer in this case is just not justified. I mean, the whole point of the SC/SI selection example was that it was a group-selection effect happening with groups of species. The same mechanism happening there would also operate with tribal/colony units.
Side note: It is always September on the internet.
Not really outdated.
Eliezer is trying to cure people of defaulting to a group selection that seems to be, in the imagination of the regular educated audience, stronger than individual organism (let alone gene!) level selection.
I’m kind of tired of this discussion since I’ve read a lot of stuff on the subject and while in my opinion Eliezer may be wrong on a minor point or two or has perhaps miscommunicated a few more, people are spending a lot of time nitpicking something that is to the first approximation accurate and works great as a cure. A few of them are just being good LWers and do so in good faith but a few others seem driven by a desperate desire to rescue as much of the good fuzzy feeling group selection can bring.
I apologize if this is too harsh, but I felt it needs to be said, especially now that we have a large influx of new LWers (I wouldn’t go nearly as far but a few have even spoken of an Eternal September ), some of which are not yet even near to being as less wrong on this as Eliezer’s original article is.
Note: I say this as someone who had a quite good (and not totally uninformed) opinion of group selection at one point.
After his posting in September, I can’t agree with that. He flat out stated that “group selection cannot exist”. For a group of people who are supposed to demand that their beliefs pay rent, and that we not attribute weight to beliefs based on who they come from, defending Eliezer in this case is just not justified. I mean, the whole point of the SC/SI selection example was that it was a group-selection effect happening with groups of species. The same mechanism happening there would also operate with tribal/colony units.
Side note: It is always September on the internet.