Description
Book SynopsisEvolutionary change is usually incremental and continuous, but some increases in organizational complexity have been radical and divisive. Evolutionary biologists, who refer to such events as major transitions, have not always appreciated that these advances were novel forms of pairwise commitment that subjugated previously independent agents. Inclusive fitness theory convincingly explains cooperation and conflict in societies of animals and free-living cells, but to deserve its eminent status it should also capture how major transitions originated: from prokaryote cells to eukaryote cells, via differentiated multicellularity, to colonies with specialized queen and worker castes. As yet, no attempt has been made to apply inclusive fitness principles to the origins of these events. Domains and Major Transitions of Social Evolution develops the idea that major evolutionary transitions involved new levels of informational closure that moved beyond looser partnerships. Early neo-Darwinians
Trade ReviewThis book is valuable for anyone interested in the history of evolutionary thought and theory. It is a must have for anyone for whom kin selection and inclusive fitness maximization is their scientific guiding lodestar. It is also a must have for those for whom kin selection and inclusive fitness maximization is the bane of their existence - to see the best case the other side can muster. Domains and Major Transitions of Social Evolution is a book for the serious evolutionary biologist seeking an intellectual challenge. I found it both enlightening and worthwhile, if not entirely persuasive. * Peter Nonacs, ISBE Newsletter 2023 *
This well-researched book makes an enjoyable read. It is thought-provoking while avoiding too many technicalities, and as such also well suited for graduate teaching. Obviously, any scholar interested in social evolution will want to read this volume. It will also appeal to evolutionary biologists who would like to see a condensed treatment of the development of evolutionary thought, and to anyone who ever wondered what makes social insects so special yet, at the same time, similar to cells. * Ulrich R. Ernst, Trends in Ecology & Evolution *
