> Even human society can only be analogized to an organism. It isn't one either.
Why not?
An organism can reasonably be defined as the minimal subset of a gene's phenotype that is actually capable of reproducing. On that view, an ant (for example) is not an organism, an ant colony is the organism. This neatly solves the puzzle of how it is possible for evolution to produce ants, since the vast majority of individual ants are sterile.
On that view, the minimal possible organism for a sexually-reproducig species is a mating pair. But a single pair of humans would not survive in the wild. At a minimum it takes a village (as they say). So a human village can reasonably be taken to be an organism, just as an ant colony can. But a village can't produce a technological society. At best, a village can subsist. So why is it unreasonable to consider (say) a city-state as an evolutionary advance on the village, and hence an organism in its own right even thought it isn't minimal? And so on through the Roman empire, the British empire, and the modern nation-state and multinational corporation, all of which are no less examples of the human genome's phenotype than the human body itself.
From the puzzle: how can it be that evolution produces a creature (ants) where 99% of the individuals are sterile? And the answer: ants are not the organism, the ant colony is the organism. This idea was introduced by Dawkins in "The Extended Phenotype".
> there are numerous examples of single families surviving in the wild
Not without some external support. At a minimum they went into the wild with some clothing and tools.
> From the puzzle: how can it be that evolution produces a creature (ants) where 99% of the individuals are sterile? And the answer: ants are not the organism, the ant colony is the organism. This idea was introduced by Dawkins in "The Extended Phenotype".
That has nothing to do with the definition of the word organism. Maybe you want another word for the unit of reproduction, but the word /organism/ already has a specific meaning, independent of reproduction.
That's news to me. AFAIK, the meaning of "organism" is inextricably bound to the concept of life, which in turn is inextricably bound to reproduction. But please do enlighten me: what is this established meaning of "organism" that has nothing to do with reproduction?
I don't think so. What really matters is the information that is being replicated. In the case of humanity, that information is encoded in our DNA and in our artifacts. But the planet exists independently of any information that is encoded on or in it, so I don't think it would be fair to say that the planet has reproduced. But it's arguable.
This mostly depends on whether the planets where life originates are anything like each other.
We just assume that every life-harboring planet will have water and trees and blue skies, but even the "dead" planets that we've seen so far are nothing like each other.
However if Earth is the only place with leafy green trees, for example, and we go on to plant these on Mars and other planets, we will essentially be making copies of Earth (which would otherwise be the only example of itself) by replicating its attributes and variables on other worlds as much as we can, for our own comfort.
Over a large enough scale of time and space, Earth could be seen as a successful organism that managed to replicate itself. It doesn't need to have any direct agency over its reproductive components (us) any more than we have any agency over our own sperm and eggs.
That's a good argument, but it depends entirely on whether we (earth life) adapt new planets to suit our preconceptions of life, or whether life from earth adapts to the conditions in finds on other planets and becomes very different from what it once was. In the former case, yes, I would totally accept that earth had replicated. But I think the latter scenario is more likely.
First, the vast majority of people who survive in the wild take tools and clothing with them. And second, it's not enough to just survive. You have to reproduce. And it's not enough to just make a baby, you have to raise it to the point where it is capable of independent survival.
You have a very very mistaken view about the level of sophistication necessary for reproduction. Its just not based in fact. There are still multiple stone age level tribes on the earth. take a woman and man from such a society with no tools and clothing, and put them in a environment similar to what they are used to and they will build the tools and clothing they need and reproduce.
Most modern humans are completely disconnected from this lifestyle and probably would not be able to adjust quickly enough... but its not some impossibility of biology.
Do you think a gorilla or chimpanzee male and female couple placed in an appropriate habitat with a reasonable amount of luck could survive to reproduce?
> There are still multiple stone age level tribes on the earth.
Yes, of course. The key word there being tribe. Not isolated breeding pairs.
> take a woman and man from such a society with no tools and clothing, and put them in a environment similar to what they are used to and they will build the tools and clothing they need and reproduce.
Maybe. But even if this were true, the couple would still be relying on knowledge gained through their upbringing in the tribe. That's the reason doing this experiment with humans not raised in a stone-age tribe would almost certainly fail.
Isolated families surviving does happen indeed. A good example is the Lykov family who were completely isolated for over 40 years. [1][2] However they brought with them tools made by others before starting their isolated life, like steel axes. They also imported education & language. I haven't heard of any isolated family success stories that start without any external help.
> they brought with them tools made by others before starting their isolated life, like steel axes
Exactly. This is just a piece of an organism (society) "budding off" and surviving for a while on its own, not unlike an individual ant wandering away from the colony, or Henrietta Lacks's cancer cells (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks). AFAIK there is not a single example of a human mating pair completely cut off from all technological artifacts and successfully reproducing.
While I do believe this hasn't really happened, surely there's a strong observational bias involved ("AFAIK" - but why would you know? :) If they're isolated, chances of learning about them would be very slim by definition)
It's not a well controlled experiment, but it's data. Even in that minimalist scenario they have some tools. Because it's just obvious that if you had no tools your odds of survival are pretty frickin' low. People die in the wilderness all the time even with tools.
Humanity survived with nothing more than stone hand axes for thousands of generations, and there are plenty of instances of individuals, even in modern times, surviving in the wilderness, alone, without significant tools for an extended period of time. People have been stranded and survived on deserted islands, alone, for extended periods of time. With a plentiful food source and decent shelter, it's been done many times. It's both harder and easier than you imagine.
I am not aware of even a single instance where a single pair of humans with no technological support successfully reproduced (by which I mean: raised a child until it was old enough to survive independently. Just having a baby doesn't count.) If you know of such a case, please give me a reference.
What are you talking about? You are completely out of touch with reality. Society is great and is humans natural state... the vast majority of people are going to eventually experience psychological issues due to being alone and will lose the will to live. However being able to successfully hunt and gather enough sustenance to survive without a larger group, is not particularly 'impossible'...
It's not enough to hunt and gather and survive. You have to be able to reproduce. And you have to do it without any tools or clothing or shelter that was produced by civilization. That is very, very hard. It might not be impossible, but AFAIK it has never been done.
Why not?
An organism can reasonably be defined as the minimal subset of a gene's phenotype that is actually capable of reproducing. On that view, an ant (for example) is not an organism, an ant colony is the organism. This neatly solves the puzzle of how it is possible for evolution to produce ants, since the vast majority of individual ants are sterile.
On that view, the minimal possible organism for a sexually-reproducig species is a mating pair. But a single pair of humans would not survive in the wild. At a minimum it takes a village (as they say). So a human village can reasonably be taken to be an organism, just as an ant colony can. But a village can't produce a technological society. At best, a village can subsist. So why is it unreasonable to consider (say) a city-state as an evolutionary advance on the village, and hence an organism in its own right even thought it isn't minimal? And so on through the Roman empire, the British empire, and the modern nation-state and multinational corporation, all of which are no less examples of the human genome's phenotype than the human body itself.