More myth telling, this time by a famous Darwinian evolutionary biologist. The clear agenda is that this is a religion to replace other religions.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/the-riddle-of-the-human-species/
But note in contrast how poorly the story is supported by science. Yes, we observe that humans are complex social creatures. We also observe that groups that cooperate best together, do better together than other groups. But this is not evidence for Darwinism, this is the data that needs to be explained by evolution, otherwise Darwinism is not true (note: here the word ‘Darwinism’ will be used in the popular sense of a grand design-free origin story).
What explanation does he give? Multi-level selection. And why do we believe in multi-level selection? Because of overwhelming evidence? No, its because someone recently proved that our previous favourite theory – kin-selection – doesn’t work. Hehehe!
But to be honest, ‘multi-level selection’ is merely a restatement of the problem. The real question is how can evolution overcome the short-sighted selfishness of natural selection acting at the individual level, that would tend to destroy any cooperation in a group. It may well be that the least selfish group will go on to succeed (that is the group exhibiting least evolution). But that doesn’t explain how a group can become less selfish. Looks like you would still need a miracle for that, or do I mean rational consideration?