The evolution of cooperation in organisms of varying degrees of complexity. Group selection, kin selection, eusociality, miscellaneous other mechanisms.
Brian McGill’s parable of the hens, based on Muir and Craig (1998), a.k.a. putting the “coop” in “cooperation”.
High productivity egg-laying is associated with aggression — indeed the highest egg layers are basically the ones that beat up the other hens in the coop with them and capture the most resources. […]
Then in the 1980s people got the idea to use group selection. Instead of picking individuals that were most productive, they selected entire hen houses that were most productive to produce the next generation
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