This topic is interesting, I've never heard of Group Evolution. May I present my thoughts?
A trait of humans - evolved individually to help the group as a whole.
I'm not sure whether to say that this trait is Gossiping or Teaching. I'll call it gossip, since that may have been the same as teaching when we were cavemen.
The reason I touch on this trait is that I sometimes find a powerful urge to tell someone a secret that I promised I wouldn't tell. At first, I thought my motivation was that I wanted to impress the person(parsimoniously, this would be trump I think.) The more I explored peoples reactions, though, the more I realized that they were indifferent to my telling and more interested in the information itself.
Not until I read this post did I think that the trait of gossiping would have excellent survival benefits for groups of people. Let me explain some examples.
A lone hunter comes back from a hunt for food with a deer. An individual survival trait may dictate that he keep this a secret for himself so he has more food. Another individual survival trait may be to tell people where the food is in order to impress them and get a potential mate.
Up until 10 minutes ago I would have said the second trait is the simplest and purest possibility. But think of how much more survivable the entire group would be if the hunter already had a mate, yet still told the others because of an urge to tell them. In the end, he is proud of this, which is the same as telling everyone to impress a mate. Yet more people would survive because of this trait than just him.
Or...
Someone telling his comrades how to make bows and arrows. Group survivability just went up tremendously. Someone explaining that salt kept meat cured. Group survivability also goes up.
Could the urge to gossip/teach be developed from group evolution?
Edited by: Interbane at: 10/14/04 10:41 pm
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. I'm really swamped right now, but want to get involved in this thread before it dies a lonely death. 
