''Group Selection'' is a 1971 book edited by
George C. Williams, containing papers written by biologists arguing against the view of
group selection
Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene.
Early authors such as V. C. Wynne-Edwards and Konrad Lorenz argued that the behav ...
as a major force in
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
. The group of biologists writing on a single unified (if somewhat broad) theme contrasts with Williams' earlier seminal 1966 book ''
Adaptation and Natural Selection
''Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought'' is a 1966 book by the American evolutionary biologist George C. Williams. Williams, in what is now considered a classic by evolutionary biologists, outlines a g ...
'', whose arguments Williams suspected to be his alone. In particular it contains a reprint, with an erratum, of
W.D. Hamilton
William Donald Hamilton (1 August 1936 – 7 March 2000) was a British evolutionary biologist, recognised as one of the most significant evolutionary theorists of the 20th century.
Hamilton became known for his theoretical work expounding a ...
's classic 1964 paper on
inclusive fitness
In evolutionary biology, inclusive fitness is one of two metrics of evolutionary success as defined by W. D. Hamilton in 1964:
* Personal fitness is the number of offspring that an individual begets (regardless of who rescues/rears/supports them ...
, "
The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior" plus a paper by
John Maynard Smith
John Maynard Smith (6 January 1920 – 19 April 2004) was a British theoretical and mathematical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics und ...
entitled "The Origin and Maintenance of Sex" (pp 163–175), containing ideas on
evolution of sex
Sexual reproduction is an adaptive feature which is common to almost all multicellular organisms and various unicellular organisms, with some organisms being incapable of asexual reproduction. Currently the adaptive advantage of sexual reprodu ...
later developed by Maynard Smith; see especially his 1978 book ''
The Evolution of Sex''.
1971 in biology
1971 non-fiction books
American non-fiction books
Books about evolution
Books by George C. Williams
English-language books
{{evolution-book-stub