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%title and author details
\title{The Politician's Fear Of Group Selection}
\author[1]{Eugene Panferov}
%\affil[1]{Address of author}
\date{in response to\linebreak"The False Allure Of Group Selection" by Steven Pinker} %remove date

\maketitle

\section{Intro}

Cultures are always at war, hot or cold.
This simple fact bothers the proponents of the mainstream philosemitic propaganda all the time.
They invested astronomic amounts of effort into making white people numb to cultural differences and inevitable cultural conflicts.
Suddenly E.O.Wilson's research gives a proper scientific explanation for cultural conflicts as a natural thing in humans.
And K.MacDonald applies this knowledge to the very practical matter of one very prominent culture taking advantage of another very prominent culture.
This is why it is so important for Pinker to destroy E.O.Wilson.

In "The False Allure Of Group Selection" Pinker sacrifices all his scientific credibility to "destroy" E.O.Wilson.
This seemingly scientific tedium is neither scientific nor tedious.
It is not scientific because Pinker does not offer any science, he smears, strawmans, insinuates, and invents yet uncategorized fallacies
(what else could he do? trying to disprove that groups of organisms are subject to natural selection as well as individual organisms -- the fact is so obvious that
extinct species alone (being GROUPS THAT CEASED TO EXIST) would make all Pinker's efforts futile in an honest scientific debate).
It is not tedious becaue it relates directly to the JQ that is the most important problem for every western man nowadays.

I address both of the Pinker's argumentation: its form and its content, though they are pretty inseparable, so pay attention.

However, I am not going to touch the JQ, it would be sufficient to show Pinker failed his task, despite being a genius of lies.  
I want to show you how masterfully he lied, and how utterly he destroyed his scientific credibility.
Corollary to the Pinker's lies being exposed, you can have your own idea how right and how important E.O.Wilson and K.MacDonald are.



\section{Smear}

Pinker smears Wilson with the outdated (XIX century) irrelevant notion of "Group Selection", while invoking this very notion for the explanation that what he is doing is a smear.
Imagine the mastery!
In order to pile two different notions of "Group Selection" together he needed a pretext to mention the old one which has no relevance to the present problem, so he created this pretext by explaining how exactly this old notion would work as a smear -- and here it is the smear in its own right! I quote:

\emph{Group selection has become a scientific dust bunny, a hairy blob in which anything having to do with "groups" clings to anything having to do with "selection." The problem with scientific dust bunnies is not just that they sow confusion; the apparent plausibility of one restricted version of "group selection" often bleeds outwards to a motley collection of other, long-discredited versions.}

Formally, it is a defence of "Group Selection", an unlucky term who was made a "dust bunny"; but it is worded in such a manner that a reader feels that the term itself is to be blamed for being a "dust bunny".
And from now on the "dust bunny" reputation will tarnish every reference to Wilson's "group selection" (which is a different phenomenon altogether).

\vspace{1pc}

Traditionally by Group selection people mean a somewhat teleological idea of "benefiting the group instinctively", as if there is an inexplicable urge to benefit a group.
It was shown to be unscientific.
Wilson, on the contrary, without adding any axioms, builds a perfectly gene-o-centric theory, which he calls "multilevel selection".
Wilson uses the term "group selection" only to highlight the specific level of selection as opposed to other levels.

Wilson highlights that selection acts simultaneously on all manifestations of a gene: a body, a family, a clan, a tribe, a nation, and on the opposite end a cancerous cell against healthy cells.
I wish to add one more: a single sperm (they do fight each other) and there is altruistic behaviour among them too.

\vspace{1pc}

Pinker admits that the term "group selection" is ambiguous, and still uses it in the stead of proper Wilsonian term "multilevel selection".
Because he is not trying to make a point, he is trying to make an IMPRESSION; he is not trying to prove anything, he is trying to make you FEEL; his goal is to incite emotions, not reasoning.

\textbf{Pinker is not a scientist, he is a politician.}


\section{Strawman}

Pinker opens the article with a deep and profound yet very careful lie, a lie that could pass for a mistake:

\emph{Does this mean that the human brain has been shaped by natural selection to promote the welfare of the group in competition with other groups, even when it damages the welfare of the person and his kin? If so, does the theory of natural selection have to be revamped to designate "groups" as units of selection, analogous to the role played in the theory by genes?}

In reality it is not required to revamp the theory in this clearly ridiculous way.
Why would we need a unit of selection analogous to the genes? since we already have genes for the role of genes!
The theory works with genes manifested in bodies.
Note that bodies are being selected, but we do not need to "revamp" the theory to make bodies analogous to genes -- it is NECESSARY that they play different strictly separate roles.

Properties of a body are determined by its genes.
Genes are being selected by proxy -- bodies die with their genes.
Properties of a group are determined by its members, whose properties in turn are determined by their genes.
Groups die with their members with their genes -- thus genes are being selected.
What else do you need? Nothing.

\vspace{1pc}

Following his "honest" style, Pinker highlights the uniqueness of the role of genes:

\emph{Sexually reproducing organisms don't literally replicate themselves, Individual bodies are simply not passed down through the generations the way that genes are.}

Same as groups! Neither groups nor bodies have to replicate in order to fulfil their role in natural selection, contrary to the initial Pinker's statement.

Wilson proposed "groups" for the role of bodies, not genes.
He made it exhaustively clear, so that there is no chance Pinker did not get it.

\vspace{1pc}

In contrast with Pinker's dirty demagoguery, Dawkins was more honest:

\emph{Group selection would imply that a group does something equivalent to surviving or dying}

Yes, Richard, it does!
And groups do not even have to reproduce in a way perfectly analogous to bodies.
Because selection is death and nothing more! If a group can die, it is a subject of some selection.
Reproduction and selection are INDEPENDENT.
The method of reproduction on its own (without affecting the actual physical properties of the individuals) can not have any effect on the process of selection, because the only information available to the selection process is those individuals.
You can imagine a no-reproduction scenario in which all individuals were pre-fabricated, the selection will not be altered by that.
It is only important for group selection to feed new groups into the selection grinder by any means available.
And these means are always available in a long run.
Groups do split profoundly (in order to disprove groups splitting you would have to disprove speciation).
Also each death of a group vacates an ecological niche for another group to split into, so the death as an explanation perfectly suffice.


\section{Muh Culture}

Pinker accentuates the "cultural" mantra several times:

\emph{...most of the groupwide traits that group selectionists try to explain are cultural rather than genetic.}

Note he implies that "cultural" is ALTERNATIVE to "genetic".
False dichotomies as usual.

Even if we ignore for now the problem of the genesis of a culture (let it be a borrowed culture that present in our population as a result of pure learning), then there is still a need for biological means for sustaining this culture and all those means are genetically encoded, for example, you can not transfer an agriculture to spiders, nor amphibians, nor even chimps...
and what is a difference between humans and spiders? -- merely genes.

Then we can scrutinize the culture's genesis problem.
We can either invent a culture or borrow it.
In order to invent we need a genetically encoded brain; in order to borrow we still need a brain capable of making THE DECISION of the borrowing and some cultural basis for this decision; and to this cultural basis we must apply the present reasoning recursively.
Therefore a culture of any degree of complexity is always rooted in your physiology, in other words, your genetic composition.

\vspace{1pc}

On the other hand, in archaeological retrospective in a point of sufficiently distant past we may observe the complete absence of any culture on Earth.
\textbf{There was a state of life where physiology and genetics exist and cultures did not.
Today cultures exist.
Therefore the cultural development was born from pure non-cultural physiology.}
In other words, any culture could be theoretically traced back to its physiological origin which is determined by genes.
A culture is a continuation of a physiology -- unless you invoke a god or aliens.

\vspace{1pc}

Perhaps some topics outside biology require cultural perspective and some phenomena are confined in a culture, thus the notion of culture isolated from biology is not void, but in a biological argument the opposition between culture and genetics is demagoguery.
And it is a great shame on Pinker that he actually BASES some of his arguments on this false opposition.

You can not exclude a topic from a biological discussion by exclaiming: "it's cultural!" -- because culture is contained within biology and requires a biological explanation not less than a leg or an arm or an eye.


\section{Occam's Razor}

\emph{If a person has innate traits that encourage him to contribute to the group's welfare and as a result contribute to his own welfare, group selection is unnecessary...}

"Unnecessary" does not mean non-existent!

Pinker claims there are ways for a given trait to be explained without Group Selection,
even if this is true, it does not disprove the physical phenomenon of Group Selection.
In the presence of multiple mutually not-exclusive causes it is likely that most of them act.
Therefore, in our reasoning, we may not use one against another.

\textbf{You can not cut a physical phenomenon with Occam's razor!} 

To be honest, I must apply the same argument against Wilson, when he attacks Kin Selection.
Both Group Selection and Kin Selection are physical phenomena -- they are not merely theoretical constructs -- they may and likely do act simultaneously.

\vspace{1pc}

Pinker deliberately treats Group Selection as an idea:

\emph{...the familiar problem which led most evolutionary biologists to reject the idea of group selection...}

This is a significant part of his strategy of denying an observable fact -- declare it a theory, compare it to other theories, discard it as a theory.

\vspace{1pc}

\emph{Some mathematical models of "group selection" are really just individual selection in the context of groups.}

NOT AN ARGUMENT.
1. they are SOME.
2. they are merely MODELS.

Again, it is a psychological trick by Pinker, not an argument.
It allowed him to write another scientifically styled paragraph that essentially contains no information.

\vspace{1pc}

Both group selection and kin selection are facts.
The only theoretical problem is how much each of them contribute to shaping a given trait.
Wilson reasonably argues that group selection is more important in most cases.
But Pinker's problem is the public awareness of the very existence of group selection -- a purely political problem!


\section{Altruism And Intelligence}

\emph{If a person has innate traits that encourage him to contribute to the group's welfare and as a result contribute to his own welfare, group selection is unnecessary...}

Pinker implies that there ARE SOME personal benefits to the altruistic person, therefore "case closed".
TOTALLY WRONG! the problem is specifically the amount of such benefits.
(Pinker will later talk about it, but he made the quoted statement too! he makes a false statement then retracts it, and rightly hopes: retractions have much lower psychological impact, and are soon forgotten.)

So, Pinker said the existence of SOME benefit is enough.
How much exactly? -- we must ask.
Even if we divide the profit of the altruistic act equally among the tribe members, then the altruist have spent some energy whereas the rest have not, therefore the altruist is at a reproductive disadvantage even in this very optimistic case.
And what I said is also demagoguery of the same sort Pinker does.
I just wanted to illustrate the weakness of his point, even in his home field.

In an honest debate I would have to ask the following question:
\emph{What way and in what direction the altruistic act in question affects the actor's genes representation in the tribal gene pool?}

In order for the Pinker's argument to be true it is necessary that the altruistic act INCREASES the altruist's genes representation (not simply cause some benefits).

Let's assume the tribe in question is affected only by Kin Selection; and the altruistic act does not directly involve reproduction (so we can talk about material benefits of the act as true proxy for reproductive success).
Then the said INCREASE of reproductive success requires at least: a compensation to the altruist for the cost of the act, plus the altruist (including his close relatives) receives a bigger share of the outcome of the act than the rest of the tribe -- anything less than that is DISADVANTAGEOUS for the altruist's genes, and we have an unsolvable problem of establishing such a disparity of outcome.

But wait! How do we define altruism? Does an act as described above fit the definition of altruism?
If an altruist makes more profit than recipients of his "altruism"...
By extending the "altruism" to such cases where the performer benefits himself more than his recipients, Pinker plays on words, again, like a politician.

So we have discovered a clear-cut threshold for the altruistic behaviour to increase altruistic genes representation in a setup without group selection: below this threshold altruism weeds out altruistic genes, above this threshold it is NO LONGER ALTRUISM, it is regular selfishness.

And Pinker is quick to admit that:

\emph{It's only when humans display traits that are disadvantageous to themselves while benefiting their group that group selection might have something to add.}

If we allow for the group selection to act, then the altruist's gene representation WILL INCREASE in a metapopulation
under much wider range of conditions including those way below the aforementioned threshold.
If the said altruism helps the entire group to eat a competitor group, then the representation of the altruist's genes in the combined pool almost doubles because the size of the pool has about been halved.

Pinker admits that too:

\emph{The reproductive success of humans undoubtedly depends in part on the fate of their groups.
If a group is annihilated, all the people in it, together with their genes, are annihilated.}

\textbf{So the genetic success of altruism is mathematically more dependant on the group genocidal success, rather than the individual (or kin) reproductive success of the altruist in question.}
Thus, the inter-group competition allows for the altruism to be seriously damaging for altruists' personal reproduction, while maintaining evolutionary profit for their genes in a long run.
This is the situation which we call "altruism" as we perceive it apparently disadvantageous for altruists here and now.
This is the only "altruism" Wilson writes about.
Therefore, by the statement quoted above, Pinker FORMALLY admitted Wilson is right: we need the group selection to explain strict altruism.

And Pinker reinforces Wilson's point with an example:

\emph{...the warrior may stay at the rear, or sneak off to the side, and let everyone else fight.
In still others the outcome may be uncertain, but because selection works on probabilities,
he may play the odds, say, taking a one-in-ten chance of getting killed in a raid that promises a one-in-two chance of abducting a few extra wives.
We should expect selection to favor traits that maximize the individual's expected reproductive output, given these tradeoffs.}

Pinker admits that war creates a selective pressure in favour of the cowards and against the brave.
Bravery puts your reproduction at risk, whereas cowardice is rewarded (as long as the entire tribe wins).
According to the previous Pinker's admission, the group selection is required to explain the evolution of bravery.
Exactly the Wilson's point.

Few paragraphs later Pinker asks:

\emph{Do humans in fact have adaptations that benefit the group at the expense of the self?}

The greatest public speaker of the century has memory issues.
He already answered this question: bravery and military valour.
But this is not the only one and not the best one.
There are: generosity, HONESTY, modesty, and above all of them INTELLIGENCE.

Only the lazy and the blind don't know that the intelligence hinders your reproduction like nothing else.
Not all smart kids even survive the elementary school!
Do we really need a massive database of observations to know that all people in human society meticulously select against intelligence? Schools, parents, other kids, teachers, educational programs and governments -- they all try to exterminate smart kids, before during and after the school, and later in life all social institutions try to exclude smart adults from reproduction.

And there is no conspiracy at all, the explanation for such a massive phenomenon is simpler than you might have imagined!
A hierarchy does value loyalty above anything else including intelligence, thus wherever you build a hierarchy, you weed out intelligence, and people build hierarchies everywhere -- simple as that.
Why is intelligence specifically suppressed by hierarchies (much more than all other qualities which are also suppressed to promote sheer loyalty)?
Because intelligence tend to contradict loyalty, up to mutual exclusivity in very many cases.
So that to build a stable hierarchy you must exterminate intelligence to the best of your ability.

And according to our own eyes unnecessarily aided with Pinker's books, the evolution in favour of intelligence in humans at large is apparent: guns, steel, antibiotics.
This is where the group selection steps in.
\textbf{Groups that were too good at killing their smart members, are no longer dominating this planet.}

Here is one simple and stunningly conclusive observation available for you and everybody:
who had the most sexual access to almost all girls in your school?
THE BOY WITH THE LONGEST CRIMINAL RECORD.

Let that sink in.


\section{Lawyer}

Why does Pinker all the way negate his own pathos, always admitting Wilson was right?
He is playing a lawyer, he wants to minimize lies and convey his false message by pronouncing mostly truthful statements.
He wants his reader to lie to himself.
He provokes the reader to make false attribution of ideas that Wilson never held, and imagine statements that are not a part of the Wilson's book.
He puts a strawman argument and never openly attribute it to E.O.Wilson, he wants us to imply that he is disproving some of the Wilson's statements,
but no, he did not say that -- no lawyer would catch him.
He puts a few lies in there, and then (after ruminating on them) he admits these were lies, but he buries this admission in a pile of bogus irrelevant pseudo-reasoning.
His entire article is back-and-forth: propose a lie, and then retract it, pretend it was a hypothetical;
it creates a formally "honest" document, in which lies are given the upper hand in their psychological impact, and truths are in fine print for lawyers.

Again why? Is he afraid of legal consequences? I do not know.
But even if it is his own consciousness, it must be very pleasing for him to have some deniability for his statements in his sleeve.

\vspace{1pc}

Then Pinker tries to negate his negation of his own narrative:

\emph{Take the extreme case of a gene that impelled a person to launch a suicide attack that allowed his group to prevail over an enemy.
That is hardly a gene that could be selected!}

And this is a pure lie! Suicide genes are being promoted by natural selection all the way, every day.
Because a suicide does not have to occur before reproduction.
Let alone war, has Pinker never ate salmon? or Honey? never heard of Praying mantises, and spiders?
Either the greatest scientist on Earth have never went to elementary school, or does not control his speech.



\section{The Fascist}

I quote the paragraph 3 of the chapter 3 whole, it reads:

\emph{Many questionable claims are packed into the clustering of inherent virtue, human moral intuitions, group-benefiting self-sacrifice, and the theory of group selection.
One is the normative moral theory in which virtue is equated with sacrifices that benefit one's own group in competition with other groups.
If that's what virtue consisted of, then fascism would be the ultimate virtuous ideology, and a commitment to human rights the ultimate form of selfishness.
Of course, that is not what Wilson meant; he apparently wanted to contrast individual selfishness with something more altruistic, and wrote as if the only alternative to benefiting oneself is contributing to the competitive advantage of one's group.
But the dichotomy ignores another possibility: that an individual can be virtuous by benefiting other individuals (in principle, all humans, or even all sentient creatures), whether or not he enhances the competitive prowess of the group to which he belongs.}

It is so rich in fallacies, and so twisted that it took days to unravel; I read it some 30 times and rewrote it a couple times in ABSTRACT SYMBOLS in order to extract all the information it has packed into.

First and foremost, note the sentence:

\emph{Of course, that is not what Wilson meant;}

This sentence renders the entire paragraph 100\% IRRELEVANT to the attack on Wilson -- Wilson did not mean what Pinker is discussing in this paragraph.
At the same time this sentence makes the paragraph formally true -- since Pinker admits its irrelevance,
then we can not accuse him of ascribing the content of the paragraph to Wilson.
Pinker is free to discuss anything in his paper, be it unicorns or vegan restaurants, but he chooses to discuss fascism FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT.

Pinker defines "virtue":

\emph{In the normative moral theory virtue is equated with sacrifices that benefit one's own group in competition with other groups.}

Then he states a corollary to this definition:

\emph{...then fascism would be the ultimate virtuous ideology...}

In his opinion it is corollary because he ASSUMES that fascism is beneficial for a group.
Without this assumption his corollary is false!
Pay attention!
\textbf{Pinker is certain that fascism is beneficial to a society.}

Yet he dares to accuse others of sympathies to fascism!
He meant the corollary to be a smear against Wilson, as if Wilson's ideas lead to fascism.
Lefties always project their OWN views onto their opponents!
Every single time.

And there is another corollary:

\emph{...and a commitment to human rights the ultimate form of selfishness.}

In this quote "selfishness" means anti-virtue, and "virtue" means benefit to your own group (check the full quote above).
This means that \textbf{Pinker is certain that human rights are DETRIMENTAL to a group practising human rights!} -- without this assumption the quoted statement is false!

Let that sink in.


\section{Wordplay}

There is still more anti-science in this quote:

\emph{One is the normative moral theory in which virtue is equated with sacrifices that benefit one's own group in competition with other groups.
If that's what virtue consisted of, then fascism would be the ultimate virtuous ideology, and a commitment to human rights the ultimate form of selfishness.}

Pinker defines the word "virtue" in a manner that includes "fascism".
And then he blames Wilson for that! as if Wilson called fascism virtuous.
It is a word play!!! -- the worst type of demagoguery -- \textbf{Pinker weaponizes EMOTIONAL CONNOTATIONS of a word!}

An honest scientist should ignore emotional connotations of words altogether.
Especially when he himself REDEFINES THE WORD, no connotations of the previous definition should be inherited!


\section{Buddism}

Still in the same paragraph, suddenly, without a proper explicit announcement, Pinker changes the definition of the "virtue":

\emph{...an individual can be virtuous by benefiting other individuals...}

It is still 100\% irrelevant, because it is not the definition that Wilson uses,
but it does not stop Pinker from using the definition itself as an argument against Wilson:

\emph{Wilson wanted to contrast individual selfishness with something more altruistic, and wrote as if the only alternative to benefiting oneself is contributing to the competitive advantage of one's group.
But the dichotomy ignores another possibility: that an individual can be virtuous by benefiting other individuals (in principle, all humans, or even all sentient creatures), whether or not he enhances the competitive prowess of the group to which he belongs.}

Did Wilson ignore this "possibility"? Of course he did!
He also ignored unicorns, space aliens, and a "possibility" of a god's intervention.
Wilson did not create a "dichotomy" he simply discusses options of increasing your genes representation.
In the given context these options happen to be TWO: benefiting yourself, benefiting your group (a kin selectionist would add a third option: benefiting your relatives) -- the \emph{benefiting all sentient creatures} DOES NOT INCREASE YOUR GENES REPRESENTATION, therefore it is not on the list of relevant "possibilities".

To this matter it is highly appropriate to quote Dawkins:

\emph{In practice it is convenient to limit 'extended phenotype' to cases where the effects influence the survival chances of the gene, positively or negatively.}

Moreover, by proposing the \emph{benefiting all sentient creatures} as an alternative to real survival benefits,
Pinker compares real observable phenomena with IMAGINED phenomena, and suggests that his IMAGINATION has more explanatory power than mundane biology.

Does Pinker offer any evidence for the existence of this phenomenon?

NO.

Does Pinker offer a theoretical explanation of how this phenomenon could have evolved?

NO.

He only offers us some "possibility".
He merely imagined a \emph{benefiting all sentient creatures} and argues that it is not disproven.

A striking similarity with the favourite argument by deists: \emph{Ok, the god does not interact with the present universe, but he COULD HAVE INTERACTED! he COULD! he COULD!!!}


\section{Libel}

Pinker accuses Wilson of analogizing humans with bees:

\emph{...is human psychology really similar to the psychology of bees?}

This is LIBEL.
Wilson had never included neither psychology nor similarity between bees and humans into his argument.
In fact Wilson builds his argument on the DISSIMILARITY between bees and humans.
He explains the necessity of the group selection for humans with the COUNTEREXAMPLE of bees.


\section{Manipulation}

In the paragraph 6 of the chapter 2, Pinker focuses on psychological manipulation as a factor of a group strategy and individual's relations with his group.
Although he does not deduce any relevant conclusions from this excursion, it all looks like he attempted to accuse Wilson of not paying attention to the problem.
But it is WRONG! Wilson did mention manipulation, and demonstrated it does not affect his theory.

Taking the manipulation argument seriously, where is the margin between a manipulation and a persuasion? Do personal persuasions exist without collective ones? Is there even a margin between individual consciousness and a collective consciousness?..
\textbf{The Group Selection does not require answers to these questions!}
A group dies or survives -- this matters.
What were the internal mechanisms causing the group to act do not matter.
Manipulation or not, so what?

\vspace{1pc}

Pinker rightfully argues that emotional mechanisms, by which the kin selection manifests, could be fooled by ideologies:

\emph{The recognition of kin among humans depends on environmental cues that other humans can manipulate.
Thus people are also altruistic toward their adoptive relatives, and toward a variety of fictive kin such as brothers in arms, fraternities and sororities, occupational and religious brotherhoods, crime families, fatherlands, and mother countries.
These faux-families may be created by metaphors, simulacra of family experiences, myths of common descent or common flesh, and other illusions of kinship.}

So we can fool kin selection, in order to extend it, with an ideology.
This explanation for a group loyalty poses a question:
WHAT IS THE EVOLUTIONARY CAUSE OF THIS IDEOLOGY?

\textbf{The group selection gives an answer.}
Pinker does not.
Pinker gave us an unanswered question as an "explanation"


\section{Reputation}

\emph{Group selection fails to predict that human altruism should be driven by moralistic emotions and reputation management.}

Even if it does (which is NOT shown by Pinker)
So what?!
The group selection also fails to predict legs, ears, and opposable thumbs.
And so does kin selection too.

\vspace{1pc}

Pinker rightfully notices that the reputation forgery is SECONDARY in relation to the true reciprocity:

\emph{...humans are language-using creatures who need not discriminate reciprocators from exploiters only by direct personal experience, but can also ask around and find out their reputation for reciprocating with or exploiting others.
This in turn creates incentives to establish and exaggerate one's reputation (a feature of human psychology that has been extensively documented by social psychologists), and to attempt to see through such exaggerations in others.
And one way to credibly establish one's reputation as an altruist in the probing eyes of skeptics to be an altruist, that is, to commit oneself to altruism...}

Reciprocity creates reputation which creates incentives to forge reputation.
And reciprocity BENEFITS the group!
Therefore Pinker's argument is not against, but for the group selection because the reputation forgery NECESSITATES real reciprocity with real benefits to the group.
Is he plainly stupid?

\vspace{1pc}

Another failure of Pinker's argument is the focus on wartime sacrifice.
Even if he is right, he confined the consequences of his argument to this one particular case, because his reasoning entirely depends on it.

Also he builds his reasoning on suicidal attacks:

\emph{...the group selection is not true because it does not explain suicidal attacks.}

And at the same time argues that they are so few in the historical record that we may safely ignore them as a fluke:

\emph{They write as if suicide missions have long been the norm in human conflict.
My reading of the history of organized violence is that this is very far from the case.}

He probably IS stupid.


\section{Justice}

Pinker describes the game "Public Goods" played in a lab:

\emph{participants are allocated a sum of money and invited to contribute as much as they want to a communal pot, which is then multiplied by the experimenter and divided evenly among them.
The optimum strategy for the group is for everyone to contribute the maximum; 
the optimum strategy for the individual is to contribute zero, thereby enjoying both the group dividend and his private stash.
In a typical experiment with repeated rounds of play, free riding takes over and the public contribution dwindles to zero.}

Pinker concludes that people were not subjected to a group selection (along their evolutionary trajectory).
Whereas the only true conclusion is: \emph{the evolution never offered this game to the people.}
The behaviour of the players may only tell us (in the first approximation) how do they behave in this particular game, especially when the players are fully aware of the game and KNOW THEY ARE PLAYING.
We do not have any reason to assume that this perfectly abstract game interferes with those payers' emotions that factor in their social interactions.

However, this experiment was made much more informative:

\emph{When people are given an opportunity to punish free riders by levying a fine on them, then free riding decreases and everyone's profit increases -no surprise there.
The surprise is that:
people will sometimes punish free-riders even if they have to pay for the privilege, and are assured by the experimenters that everyone is anonymous and no one will meet up with their partners again.
Since the punishment is costly, and cannot even be rewarded by a reputation for civic-mindedness, it has been described as "altruistic," and has been touted as evidence for group-selected self-sacrifice.}

It is important that the punishment component is not a mere update of the formal rules of the game -- it does touch the emotional sphere of the players! -- the game became LESS ABSTRACT for the players.
This is in perfect harmony with the idea of group selection.
This is perhaps why the experimenters interpreted it so generously in favour of their hypothesis.
I remain of the opinion that this game absolutely does not debunk group theory, and does not prove it either.

The major result of this experiment is: \emph{people hate games in which they do not control the situation} (in the original game payers could do literally nothing, so that they collectively collapsed the game).
On the contrary, they are very engaged in a game that rewards them with TANGIBLE RESULTS OF THEIR ACTIONS.

\vspace{1pc}

Moreover, in this experiment the experimenter himself is a metaphor of an external factor that affects the success of the group (by enforcing the rules) which makes this experiment another bit more relevant to the group selection.

\vspace{1pc}

Still more to this! We can look at this experiment from another vantage point.
These players used the pure selfish strategy in this abstract game in the lab setting.
They showed some perfect logic.

THE VERY SAME PEOPLE act differently in real life!!!
So that the experiment (if we include the real life of the players into the scope of our observation) highlighted a stunning contradiction between these people's REASONABLE IDEAL (that they exhibited in the lab) versus their actual behaviour -- people do not choose perfectly logical selfish strategies in real life even if they are capable of doing so (as the experiment demonstrates).
Therefore we need an evolutionary reason for them to act against their own idealistic views!

\textbf{The experiment demonstrated how people think they SHOULD BEHAVE, but we know they behave altruistically in real life.
In real life they betray their reason in favour of group benefits.}
And this is the evidence of group selection!



\section{Conclusion}

It is worth noticing that many nominal opponents of the evil group selection, all celebrity scientists sin with it routinely without even noticing.

When we speak about evolutionary stable strategies, we inevitably imply group selection.
What does it mean "evolutionary unstable"? It means that a population in which all members assume this strategy can't exist.
Richard Dawkins talked multiple times about strategies of cheating as evolutionary unstable, he did it routinely, it is very basic insight for him.
A population of altruists creates incentives for cheaters, but populations consisting of 100\% cheaters do not exist, because they are not possible...

\textbf{What is the exact physical meaning of this IMPOSSIBILITY?}
Of course the group's extinction.

\vspace{1pc}

Jared Diamond also sinned with group selection and remained unaware of that:

\emph{At the cost of of a few society members who die in battle as soldiers, the whole society becomes much more effective at conquering other societies or resisting attacks.}

\vspace{1pc}

Pinker, while strawmaning Wilson, analogizes a group (as in the group selection) with a gene, whereas Wilson analogizes a group with A BODY.
Pinker claims that the group selection is alternative to the genocentric evolution (i.e. the group selection contradicts the gene selfishness).
THIS IS LIBEL!

Wilson insists on the term MULTILEVEL SELECTION -- a selection applies to all manifestations of a gene regardless of the distance between the gene and the manifestation, and as long as this manifestation has effect on reproduction OF THE GENE ITSELF, then it is legit.
This is perfect harmony with Dawkins's Extended Phenotype.
Indeed, an organization of a group, a system of in-group relations perfectly fit the definition of the extended phenotype.
Thus, Groups could be seen as manifestations of genes, as extensions of phenotype.
Thus the group selection IS gen-o-centric, it extends the selfishness of the gene.

\end{document}
Most importantly, he avoids lying whenever possible, he wants the reader to lie to himself.
He provokes the reader to make false attribution of ideas that Wilson never held, and imagine statements that are not a part of the Wilson's book.
He puts a strawman argument and never openly attribute it to E.O.Wilson, he wants us to imply that he is disproving some of the Wilson's statements, but no, he did not say that -- no lawyer would catch him.
He puts a few lies in there, and then (after ruminating on them) he admits these were lies.
He almost shows his cards to the reader, by plainly pointing out to some psychological tricks he plays against the reader.
He even admits the E.O.Wilson's point is valid and true! Yes he did! but he buried this admission in a pile of bogus irrelevant pseudo-reasoning.
His entire article is back-and-forth: propose a lie, and then retract it, pretend it was a hypothetical; it creates a formally "honest" document, in which lies are given the upper hand in their psychological impact, and truths are in fine print for lawyers.

