Group Selection

Williams has here collected the work of the chief partisans with opposed viewpoints on the theory of selection at the group level to state their arguments and rebuttals. A minority of modern biologists offer evidence to show that groups of living things are organized to assure their collective survival; they are not merely collections of individuals designed for their own survival and reproduction. In opposition, defenders of the traditional point of view charge that mechanisms of group survival are based on illusion and misinterpretation.

Because of the wide range of opinion expressed in Group Selection, the reader is exposed to all sides of the dispute and encouraged to form his or her own views. In addition, as a source book on current evolutionary issues or for research or reference material, Group Selection remains a valuable addition to every personal and institutional library in the biological sciences.

George C. Williams is professor emeritus of biological sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the author of Adaptation and Natural Selection and has contributed numerous articles to scholarly publications on the behavior and ecology of fish and has published several technical articles on evolutionary mechanisms, especially in relation to social behavior, strategies of reproduction, and adaptive features of life cycles. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was awarded its Elliot Medal.