“The Drive To Join Is Deeply Ingrained”

E.O. Wilson, who goes to picnics just for the ants, has an article in Newsweek which examines how humans are similar to tribal insects in regards to social networking. An excerpt:

“The drive to join is deeply ingrained, a result of a complicated evolution that has led our species to a condition that biologists call eusociality. ‘Eu-,’ of course, is a prefix meaning pleasant or good: euphony is something that sounds wonderful; eugenics is the attempt to improve the gene pool. And the eusocial group contains multiple generations whose members perform altruistic acts, sometimes against their own personal interests, to benefit their group. Eusociality is an outgrowth of a new way of understanding evolution, which blends traditionally popular individual selection (based on individuals competing against each other) with group selection (based on competition among groups). Individual selection tends to favor selfish behavior. Group selection favors altruistic behavior and is responsible for the origin of the most advanced level of social behavior, that attained by ants, bees, termites—and humans.”

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Atom Ant intro, 1965:

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