Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior

The most rigorous contemporary defence of group selection — the idea that natural selection can operate on groups, not just individuals or genes. Sober and Wilson dismantle the orthodoxy that had dismissed group selection since the 1960s, showing that the theoretical and empirical case is far stronger than the gene-centric mainstream acknowledged. The book is central to the debate about evolutionary altruism: how genuinely unselfish behaviour can evolve and persist. Written with philosophical care but engaging real biological data, it reopened a question most biologists considered settled. For anyone interested in cooperation, organisations, or collective behaviour, this is the foundational evolutionary argument. Where Sober and Wilson open the debate, Okasha later formalises it.