The group-selection dustup continues: E. O. Wilson calls Richard Dawkins a “journalist”

I’ve been an admirer of Ed Wilson for a long time (after all, he helped me get into Harvard). He founded the discipline of evolutionary psychology, which is a branch of sociobiology, has been an ardent conservationist, and his work on ants is unparalleled, though he’s not really incorporated the latest statistical methodologies into his phylogenetic work. And he’s an excellent popular writer who has produced two Pulitzer-Prize winning books. I was a teaching assistant for Wilson when I was a grad student, and found him kind and amiable.

But as he gets older, Wilson seems to me to be getting more concerned with securing his place in scientific history—a place that is already secured—by attacking one of the most fruitful and innovative theories in modern evolutionary biology: inclusive fitness (sometimes called “kin selection”). I’ve written about Wilson and his colleagues’ scientific errors on this site (some of the links are here), and about Nowak, Tarnita and Wilson’s paper in Nature that argues against kin selection’s importance in the evolution of “eusociality” (the division of labor among castes and the presence of queens and sterile workers seen in ants, bees, and other hymenopterans). Wilson et. al broach instead the importance of “group selection” in the evolution of these phenomena. I saw, and still see, that paper as misguided, its theoretical basis flawed, and I find little evidence for their preferred mechanism of group selection as a promoter of adaptations in nature.

There is, however, one recent paper in Nature by Jonathan Pruitt and Charles Goodnight that claims to provide evidence for group selection in colonial spiders. I haven’t yet had time to read it, but note that the University of Vermont’s announcement of their faculty’s research characterizes it this way: “Nature paper provides first-ever field evidence of controversial ‘group selection'”.  But if group selection is so important, why do we lack evidence for it? I’m willing to believe that there are cases of selection among groups in the wild (it is hard to demonstrate), but I’m not about to say they are pervasive until I have some evidence for their ubiquity. (That’s the same way I feel about God: theoretically possible but not demonstrated.) There are, after all, good theoretical reasons why group selection should be less common, and less efficacious, than the form of individual selection characterized in Dawkins’s metaphor as “the selfish gene.”

But now Wilson, who always struck me as a courtly man, a gentleman of the Southern stripe, has now overstepped his bounds and insulted a distinguished colleague, as reported in a new Guardian piece,”Biological warfare flares up again between E. O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins“. Of course, as the Guardian notes, Dawkins had some strong scientific criticisms of Wilson’s book The Social Conquest of Earth, a book I also criticized  heavily in The Times Literary Supplement (no free link available). And Dawkins was also a critic, as was I, of the Nowak, Tarnita, and Wilson Nature paper, which simply failed to show that the relatedness between social insects was irrelevant to the evolution of their eusociality. There is in fact, evidence for the opposite conclusion. But scientific criticism is no reason to denigrate someone’s abilities or mischaracterize their career. From the Guardian:

The war of words between the biologists EO Wilson and Richard Dawkins has reignited after the Harvard professor described his Oxford counterpart as a “journalist”.

In an interview with Evan Davis on BBC2’s Newsnight to promote his latest book, Wilson was asked about his differing view of natural selection compared with that of Dawkins.

Wilson answered: “There is no dispute between me and Richard Dawkins and there never has been, because he’s a journalist, and journalists are people that report what the scientists have found and the arguments I’ve had have actually been with scientists doing research.”

No dispute? Of course there’s a dispute. What Wilson means is this: “Dawkins’s criticisms don’t count because he’s only a journalist and not a scientist.”

Shortly after the programme was broadcast, Dawkins tweeted: “I greatly admire EO Wilson & his huge contributions to entomology, ecology, biogeography, conservation, etc. He’s just wrong on kin selection.”

A second tweet said: “Anybody who thinks I’m a journalist who reports what other scientists think is invited to read The Extended Phenotype.”

Wilson’s remarks are simply unfair, inaccurate, and uncharitable. While Dawkins doesn’t do actual experiments, he does expand the boundaries of science in two ways: by explaining its results to laypeople, but importantly, as in The Extended Phenotype, offering new theories and new ways to think about old observations. That is science, and it’s far more than just “journalism.” Few journalists work out the details and implications of natural selection in the way Dawkins has.  And Dawkins’s criticisms of Wilson are scientific ones; how often do you see journalists do that? In fact, journalists like Jonah Lehrer who reported on the “kin selection” dustup didn’t offer any of their own analyses of the issues, because they’re didn’t have the training or understanding to do so (see my take on Lehrer’s flawed reportage here; I believe that Carl Zimmer, who does know a lot about science, did proffer some accurate criticisms).

The Guardian goes on:

. . . Wilson was asked about his current views on the concept of a selfish gene, to which he replied: “I have abandoned it and I think most serious scientists working on it have abandoned it. Some defenders may be out there, but they have been relatively or almost totally silenced since our major paper came out.”

Abandoning “the selfish gene” is the same as abandoning natural selection on genes and individuals! Does Wilson really want to do that? Does he not think that Darwin’s characterization of how species evolve is completely wrong? If he does, then he’s flirting with being a crank. The “selfish gene” is simply a way at looking at how selection operates among different forms of genes and on the carriers of those genes.

The Guardian continues:

The paper [Wilson] referred to was a 2010 study published in Nature entitled The evolution of eusociality.

Dawkins later posted a third tweet with a link to his devastating Prospect magazine review of Wilson’s 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth, which he described as “a brief account of EO Wilson’s misunderstanding of kin selection theory”.

The final paragraphs read: “Edward Wilson has made important discoveries of his own. His place in history is assured, and so is Hamilton’s. Please do read Wilson’s earlier books, including the monumental The Ants, written jointly with Bert Hölldobler (yet another world expert who will have no truck with group selection).

“As for the book under review, the theoretical errors I have explained are important, pervasive and integral to its thesis in a way that renders it impossible to recommend. To borrow from Dorothy Parker, this is not a book to be tossed lightly aside. It should be thrown with great force. And sincere regret.”

In other words, Dawkin’s criticisms of Wilson are purely scientific, though forceful, but Dawkins, as usual, takes care to praise Wilson’s genuine (and multifarious) accomplishments. Wilson does no such thing; he just dismisses Dawkins as a journalist. (Journalism, of course, can be an honorable profession in its own right.)

I wish Wilson would think harder about his dismissal of conventional natural selection and kin selection (which is just a subset of natural selection, though Wilson denies that). I’m not sure why Ed is going this route after a lifetime of accomplishment and honors (he’s the only scientist I know who has two Pulitzer Prizes). But I do know that some of his colleagues, including both Bert Hölldobler (Wilson’s closest collaborator) and Bob Trivers, have tried without luck to correct Wilson’s thinking. If Wilson can’t stop touting a misguided theory of natural selection, at least he can stop calling Dawkins a “journalist,” for crying out loud. There is no need to be personal—and rude.

h/t: Anne M.