TY - JOUR
T1 - Group Selection May Explain Cancer Predisposition and Other Human Traits’ Evolution
AU - Voskarides, Konstantinos
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2018/4/1
Y1 - 2018/4/1
N2 - Group selection is a matter of acute controversy among evolutionary biologists. The most well-publicized debate in this regard is that between Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins. As is widely known, Edward O. Wilson is very excited about the idea of social selection and eusociality; by contrast Richard Dawkins favors the idea of gene selection. As is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Evolution is most likely a multilevel procedure, where selection forces act on genes, individuals, and groups. Here, I would like to emphasize that group selection may be a possible cause of increased genetic variation on DNA repair genes, subsequently this driving to high cancer incidence. Additionally, if group selection is indeed happening in humans, maybe this is the reason that few adaptive loci have been discovered in human genome, even though thousands of sequenced genomes exist today.
AB - Group selection is a matter of acute controversy among evolutionary biologists. The most well-publicized debate in this regard is that between Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins. As is widely known, Edward O. Wilson is very excited about the idea of social selection and eusociality; by contrast Richard Dawkins favors the idea of gene selection. As is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Evolution is most likely a multilevel procedure, where selection forces act on genes, individuals, and groups. Here, I would like to emphasize that group selection may be a possible cause of increased genetic variation on DNA repair genes, subsequently this driving to high cancer incidence. Additionally, if group selection is indeed happening in humans, maybe this is the reason that few adaptive loci have been discovered in human genome, even though thousands of sequenced genomes exist today.
KW - Adaptation
KW - DNA repair genes
KW - Extreme environments
KW - Group selection
KW - Mismatch repair
KW - Natural selection
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045027076&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00239-018-9841-0
DO - 10.1007/s00239-018-9841-0
M3 - Editorial
C2 - 29623350
AN - SCOPUS:85045027076
SN - 0022-2844
VL - 86
SP - 184
EP - 186
JO - Journal of Molecular Evolution
JF - Journal of Molecular Evolution
IS - 3-4
ER -