Heinze, J.

Bourke, A.F.G. 2011: Principles of social evolution. - Oxford University Press, Oxford, 288 pp.

Oxford University Press, Oxford, 288 pp; Paperback, ISBN13: 9780199231164, Price: £ 29.95 Jürgen Heinze, Biologie I, Universität Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Myrmecol. News 16: 24 (online 7 June 2011) Issn 1994-4136 (print), Issn 1997-3500 (online) Received 18 April 2011; accepted 19 April 2011 Charles Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is often popularized in metaphors such as "struggle for life", which emphasize the importance of individual selfishness and conflict in evolution. This rather unbalanced interpretation of how evolution works is in part attributable to Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog," who portrayed the animal world as being "on about the same level as the gladiator's show." For Darwin himself, however, evolution had facets beyond conflict, and cooperation is a particularly important one. John Maynard Smith & Eörs SZATHMÁRY (1995) showed that cooperation abounds in evolution and underlies the "major transitions" from simple to complex biological entities. Andrew…

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