Levels of selection - the coming debate

Wired has a blog entry up where they reproduce the text of an email exchange with Bert Hoelldobler, an entomologist who is collaborating with E.O. Wilson on a new book which will argue for the relevance of higher levels of organization in evolutionary processes. In The Cooperative Gene evolutionary biologist Mark Ridley elucidates how multicellular organisms emerge from a coalition of genes all with the same interest because of their imprisonment within the individual (their replication being mediated by the sex gametes). I'm assuming that Wilson & Hoelldobler are going to attempt something similar for social organization. As I have noted before E.O. Wilson is now making a big push for higher level selection dynamics, but his own sentiments have always been favorable toward this idea. Eusocial insects are probably some of the best cases for an empirical assessment and examination of the theoretical possibilities within the multi-level selection paradigm. ...