Termites’ legendary feats of co-operation are possible, in a Darwinian world, only because the majority of individuals are sterile but closely related to a minority who are very fertile indeed. Sterile workers act like parents towards their younger siblings, thereby freeing the queen to become a specialised egg factory, and a grotesquely efficient one at that. Genes for worker behaviour are passed to future generations via the minority of the workers’ siblings who are destined to reproduce (helped by the majority of their siblings who are destined to be sterile). You will appreciate that the
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