From groups to individuals: evolution and emerging individuality

Abstract

Individuality is conventionally thought to be a defining attribute of the organism, so much so that there is an assumed equivalence between the two: individuals exist as organisms, and organisms can only exist as individuals.''(p.219, Scott Turner, ''Social Insect Assemblage'').Most biologists, as well as the public, will identify organisms with individuals; that is, organisms are the individuals in the world of life.Upon reflection, matters may not be so simple.Cells might be considered as genuine biological individuals.We know that cells can exist individually, such as bacteria and protozoa.Moreover, as Claude Bernard would have it already (1878), organisms may be seen as ''instruments'' at the service of cells, which are the ''real'' individuals.Come to think of it, what about genes?Richard Dawkins famously propounded (1976) that genes are the individual units that count; and so that genes are ''selfish,'' promoting their own interests, even at the expense of the cell or the organism.In the opposite direction of complexity, the philosopher David Hull argued (1976), following Michael Ghiselin's (1974) ''radical solution to the species problem,'' that species are individuals, since species are entities undergoing selection, a proposition that engaged the interest of other philosophers, such as Elliott Sober and Philip Kitcher, but motivated another philosopher, Mario Bunge (1981) to contend that ''biopopulations, not biospecies, are individuals and evolve.'' Ernst Mayr (1987) pointed out that species are ''classes'' (and so are genera, families, etc.,), but species have continuity through time and evolve, and that there are other properties that can be predicated of ''species-as-individuals.''

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