Table Of ContentT H E F R O N T I E R S C O L L E C T I O N
Sonya Bahar
T H E
E S SE N T I A L
T E N S ION
Competition, Cooperation
and Multilevel Selection
in Evolution
123
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Sonya Bahar
The Essential Tension
Competition, Cooperation and Multilevel
Selection in Evolution
Sonya Bahar
Department of Physics & Astronomy
and Center for Neurodynamics
University of Missouri at St Louis
St Louis, MO, USA
ISSN 1612-3018 ISSN 2197-6619 (electronic)
The Frontiers Collection
ISBN 978-94-024-1052-5 ISBN 978-94-024-1054-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-024-1054-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949274
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Frank Moss
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& for C & D
Acknowledgements
There are many people I could acknowledge, but I don’t want this to sound like the
Oscars, so I will limit myself to the essential thanks that are due to the wonderful
Maria Bellantone, for urging me to write this book and for her infinite patience in
waiting for the manuscript to finally be completed.
vii
Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................... xi
Part I The History of an Idea
1 Crowds ..................................................................................................... 3
References ................................................................................................. 12
2 Classification............................................................................................ 13
References ................................................................................................. 26
3 Time, Just Time: Integrating Up the Great Chain of Being ............... 29
References ................................................................................................. 50
4 The Battle of the Parts ............................................................................ 51
References ................................................................................................. 63
5 Synthesis?................................................................................................. 65
References ................................................................................................. 83
6 Selfish Creatures, Huddled Together for Warmth ............................... 85
References ................................................................................................. 97
7 The Vanishing Point Appears ................................................................. 99
References ................................................................................................. 122
Part II At the Frontier
8 Flocking, Swarming, and Communicating ........................................... 127
References ................................................................................................. 150
9 Biofilms .................................................................................................... 153
References ................................................................................................. 170
10 Multicellularity: Dictyostelium ............................................................... 175
References ................................................................................................. 202
ix
x Contents
11 Multicellularity: Volvox .......................................................................... 207
References ................................................................................................. 231
12 Experimental Evolution .......................................................................... 235
References ................................................................................................. 266
Part III Beyond the Barricade
13 Cooperation and Competition: One Level Sitting on Another ........... 271
References ................................................................................................. 303
14 Evol = f(Evol) ........................................................................................... 309
References ................................................................................................. 330
15 Spandrels, Exaptations, and Raw Material .......................................... 333
References ................................................................................................. 358
16 The Essential Tension ............................................................................. 361
References ................................................................................................. 370
Index ................................................................................................................. 373
Introduction
I…suggest that something like ‘convergent thinking’ is just
as essential to scientific advance as is divergent. Since these
two modes of thought are inevitably in conflict, it will follow
that the ability to support a tension that can occasionally
become unbearable is one of the prime requirements for the
very best sort of scientific research.
Thomas S. Kuhn
Je juge cette longue querelle de la tradition et de
l’invention, de l’Ordre et de l’Aventure.
Guillaume Apollinaire
I MUST begin with an apology to Thomas Kuhn. The title of this book has been
borrowed – lifted, liberated, stolen, as you prefer – though my editor assures me that
titles cannot be copyrighted and that I commit no actionable offense – from the title
essay of a volume of Thomas Kuhn’s writings subtitled Selected Studies in Scientific
Tradition and Change. The essay was initially delivered as a lecture at a 1959
University of Utah conference on, of all things, the “identification of scientific tal-
ent.” Kuhn was already well known as a self-described “ex-physicist now working
in the history of science,” though the publication of his masterpiece, The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions, still lay 3 years in the future. Invited to speak at a confer-
ence – run by educational psychologists – on the key characteristics of the creative
personality and how to identify such a personality early in the educational process,
Kuhn addressed a core issue in scientific education, in terms that clearly show his
evolving thought on the themes of creativity, “normal science,” and scientific revo-
lutions. Is iconoclasm, he asked, the only characteristic needed for a successful and
creative scientist? Kuhn argued that a thorough grounding in tradition is as impor-
tant to scientific advance as the ability to strike out into the unknown. He said:
Normal research, even the best of it, is a highly convergent activity based firmly upon a
settled consensus acquired from scientific education and reinforced by subsequent life in
the profession. Typically, to be sure, this convergent or consensus-bound research ulti-
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