It has become customary in multilevel selection theory to use the same terms (namely “multilevel selection 1” and “multilevel selection 2”) to denote both two explanatory goals (explaining why certain individual- and, respectively, group-level traits spread) and two explanatory means (namely, two kinds of group selection we may appeal to in such explanations). This paper spells out some of the benefits that derive from avoiding this terminological conflation. I argue that keeping explanatory means and goals well apart allows us to see that, contrary to a popular recent idea, Price’s equation and contextual analysis—the statistical methods most extensively used for measuring the effects of certain evolutionary factors (like individual selection, group selection etc.) on the change in the focal individual trait in multilevel selection scenarios—do not come with built-in notions of group selection and, therefore, the efficacy of these methods at analyzing various kinds of cases does not constitute a basis for deciding how group selection should best be defined. Moreover, contrary to another widely accepted idea, I argue that more than one type of group selection may serve as explanatory means when one’s goal is that of explaining the evolution of individual traits in multilevel selection scenarios and I spell out how this explanatory role should be understood.

中文翻译：

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多层次选择理论的解释性目标和解释手段。

在多级选择理论中，习惯使用相同的术语（即“多级选择1”和“多级选择2”）来表示两个解释性目标（解释为什么某些个人和群体级特征得以传播）和两种解释方式（即，在这种解释中我们可能会诉诸的两种群体选择）。本文阐述了避免这种术语合并产生的一些好处。我认为，将解释性的手段和目标保持分开可以使我们看到，与最近流行的观点相反，普莱斯的方程式和上下文分析是最广泛用于衡量某些进化因素（例如个体选择，群体选择）影响的统计方法。等等 ）关于多层次选择场景中焦点个人特质的变化-并没有内置的群体选择概念，因此，这些方法在分析各种情况下的有效性并不构成决定如何选择群体的基础最好定义。此外，与另一种广为接受的想法相反，我认为，当一个人的目标是解释多层次选择场景中个体特征的演变时，不止一种类型的群体选择可以作为解释手段，而且我阐明了这种解释作用应该如何发挥作用。了解。