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Agriculture increases individual fitness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2016
Abstract
We question the need to explain the onset of agriculture by appealing to the second type of multilevel selection (MLS2). Unlike eusocial insect colonies, human societies do not exhibit key features of evolutionary individuals. If we avoid the mistake of equating Darwinian fitness with health and quality of life, the adoption of agriculture is almost certainly explicable in terms of individual-level selection and individual rationality.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016
Target article
The economic origins of ultrasociality
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