Group Selection And Isolation

Group selectionist Howard Bloom says that there is a genetically programmed switch in social animals that makes individuals susceptible to death when they sense they're disconnected from the social fabric they should be connected to.

From http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/glob/2102/1.html:


 * On the other hand, both animal and human studies demonstrate that depressed beings flirting with the grim reaper are those the individual selectionists would least expect-those least likely to benefit genes similar to their own. Their family ties are either malformed or non-existent. The immune systems of creatures with few or no friends and intimate kin shut down, while the immunological resistance of those who are part of a social web remain far more vigorous. In other words, isolated individuals undergo a strictly involuntary surrender to disease and bodily dissolution. They are seized by something akin to the suicide mechanism called apoptosis, a sequence of self-destruct events pre-programmed into nearly every living cell and activated when the cell receives signals that it is no longer of use to the larger community of which it is a part. Between their self-crippling immune-systems and their self-defeating conduct, isolated individuals vastly increase their odds of death.

This is part of a larger argument Bloom has about "superorganisms" -- organisms comprised of groups of individuals -- and the scope of natural selection: whether it operates at the group or individual level. The debate about group, individual, or multi-level natural selection has been playing out in the scientific world for the last 50 years or so, and is an interesting example of how scientific theories evolve.

Bloom is an heretical socio-scientist, sort of, whose most recent book is Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From the Big Bang to the 21st Century ISBN:0471419192.

Further reading:

Isolation - The Ultimate Poison, excerpt from previous Bloom book, The Lucifer Principle ISBN:0871136643.

Book review of Robert Wright's Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny ISBN:0679758941 discusses Bloom from the viewpoint of a multi-level selectionist and gives a quick overview of the natural selection "level" debate

A collection of Bloom's Global Brain essays: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/glob/

Howard Bloom's site: http://www.howardbloom.net