“Synergistic Selection”

The term was coined by biologist John Maynard Smith at about the time I was publishing my first book, The Synergism Hypothesis (1983), on the role of synergy as a causal explanation for the broad evolutionary trend over time toward increased complexity. The idea of synergistic selection was similar in character to David Sloan Wilson’s formulation of a “shared fate” among genes that might be jointly selected in the context of “group selection.”

Early on, both Maynard Smith and Wilson focused their efforts on explaining altruistic behaviors, in keeping with the then-common (but incorrect) assumption in evolutionary biology that cooperation implied (and necessitated) altruism. In contrast, I called it “functional group selection” in my 1983 book and emphasized that cooperation in nature (and, indeed, in human societies as well) is largely, but not always, dependent on the “bioeconomic” payoffs – the synergies that are produced, and that the degree of biological relatedness between the cooperators is not, for the most part, a decisive factor. To emphasize this point, I suggested that we should differentiate between “egoistic cooperation” and “altruistic cooperation.”

As time went on, this broader, non-altruistic understanding of cooperation came to prevail in evolutionary biology. (It was helped along by the important work in game theory, the emergence of symbiogenesis theory, and a growing body of field research on cooperative behaviors.) And so, today “synergistic selection” refers to any context in which two or more genes, or genomes (or individuals) are jointly selected as a result of the synergies that they jointly produce. In other words, there must be a functional interdependence between the cooperators, as distinct from the many so-called groups that are statistical artifacts, or are so-named because they share the same genes, or traits, and are subject to the same selection pressures.

There are innumerable examples, of course: The now obligate federation of once-independent organelles in each of our eukaryotic cells; the vitally important gut symbionts that go along for the ride in ruminant animals; the eight oarsmen that compete together in a varsity eight rowing shell. (Many more examples can be found in my recent books.) And it is now blindingly obvious that genetic relatedness may be a facilitator but is neither necessary nor sufficient for cooperation to occur in the natural world. Gerald Wilkinson’s classic study of blood sharing in unrelated vampire bats provides a stunning case in point.

The implications of the synergistic selection model for human evolution and contemporary human societies are profound. We evolved in closely cooperating groups in which, from a very early date, there was most likely a high degree of interdependence among both kin and non-kin. And the synergies that were produced by their various forms of cooperation were of decisive importance in our ancestors’ success over several million years (see the detailed scenario in my book, Nature’s Magic). Today, we continue to thrive by deploying an incredibly elaborate division of labor (though I prefer the term a “combination of labor”), even in competitive, capitalist markets, as Adam Smith and many other economists have stressed, that goes far beyond anything in nature. Indeed, we are quintessentially the synergistic ape. And our intense cooperative activities adhere to the same underlying principle of interdependent, synergistic selection. Where it will all lead remains to be seen.

Thought for the day: “In natural selection, genes are always selected for their capacity to flourish in the environment in which they find themselves….But from each gene’s point of view, perhaps the most important part of its environment is all the other genes that it encounters... Doing well in such environments will turn out to be equivalent to “collaborating’ with these other genes” [emphasis in the original]. Richard Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker)