ARE WE STALLED PART WAY THROUGH A MAJOR EVOLUTIONARY TRANSITION FROM INDIVIDUAL TO GROUP?

Abstract

This commentary poses an evolutionary hypothesis about the nature of the human condition: that we are stalled part way through a major evolutionary transition from individuals to groups, a transition that may never be completed but that has already shaped our history, politics, psychology, and social life. The conditions causing the transition to stall include the decreasing congruence of group boundaries with kinship boundaries, growth in group size, increasing interdependence of groups, membership of individuals in several types of groups, divided loyalties of individuals among groups, and the emergence of institutions as novel entities uncoupled from the individuals who temporarily belong to them. Those conditions combine to decrease the ability of cultural group selection to effect genetic change in group-oriented traits. The theory supporting this hypothesis deals with major transitions (e.g., Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1995), hierarchical selection (e.g., Price 1970, 1972; Frank 1995, 2003; Rice 2004), conflicts and conflict resolution (e.g., Burt and Trivers 2006), and gene-culture coevolution (e.g., Boyd and Richerson 2005; Richerson and Boyd 2005). The evidence is diverse. It comes from biological anthropology (e.g., Hill and Hurtado 1995), behavioral economics (e.g., Hammerstein 2003; Bowles 2004; Henrich et al. 2004), evolutionary psychology (e.g., Barkow et al. 1992), and history. The research programs it suggests are at least in anthropology, history, and political science.