Hacker News Reader

The reason it is dismissed is that group selection has been proposed and investigated many times in the history of evolutionary theory and found wanting, ironically because the mathematics don't hold up in realistic natural scenarios.

This article doesn't go into enough detail to tell us what is different in this new formulation of group selection. We'll have to read the paper to find out.

View on HN

I think those two theories might be considered as two factors promoting altruism and their should be tested in (unrealistic) simulations to find out how powerful they are in causing altruism.

Realistic, natural scenarios are not good for spotting significance of multiple factors. As with the bike, natural realistic bike just does not fall, and why is that is left for discussion, but when somebody builds a bike that nullifies some probable cause then it can be plainly seen that other factors also might have significant role.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com