believe it is possible to discern hidden group selectionist assumptions lying behind a large number of the statements that biologists make about social organization. Maynard Smith’s concept of the ESS will enable us, for the first time, to see clearly how a collection of independent selfish entities can come to resemble a single organized whole. I think this will be true not only of social organizations within species, but also of ‘ecosystems’ and ‘communities’ consisting of many species.
