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Social niche construction and evolutionary transitions in individuality
P A Ryan1, S T Powers2, R A Watson1
1Institute for Life Sciences, Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Biology & Philosophy
|December 29, 2015
Summary
This study introduces social niche construction theory to explain the evolution of cooperation. It proposes that biological entities shape their social environments, driving evolutionary transitions to higher hierarchical levels.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary Biology
- Theoretical Biology
- Social Evolution
Background:
- Conventional social evolution theory uses an externalist stance, explaining cooperation via assortment.
- The origin of this cooperative assortment remains a key question in evolutionary biology.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a new theoretical framework for understanding the evolution of cooperation.
- To explain how evolutionary processes transition to higher hierarchical levels.
Main Methods:
- Developed a theory of 'social niche construction'.
- Adopted an interactionist explanatory stance, viewing entities as subjects and objects of their evolution.
- Analyzed how traits align fitness interests and alter heritable variance at different levels.
Main Results:
- Social niche construction explains the emergence of cooperative assortment.
- Certain traits can shift evolutionary processes to collective levels (e.g., multicellular organisms).
- This framework facilitates upward hierarchical transitions in Darwinian processes.
Conclusions:
- Social niche construction offers a novel explanation for the evolution of cooperation.
- It resolves paradoxes in explaining evolutionary transitions to higher levels of selection.
- This interactionist approach integrates organism and environment in social evolution.
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