Ant Super-Colonies

I have just watched a fascinating David Attenborough 'tube on ant super-colonies.

How ants and other Hymenoptera fit with the gene-centric view of evolution is well understood. It is shared genes that drive and reinforce cooperation, altruism and even sacrifice among closely related organisms. Genes are the focus of selection, not individuals, and it does not matter whether those genes are present in one organism or another. Gene survival is all that counts.

However, not so well understood in terms of gene-oriented evolutionary principles is how ant "super-colonies" arose and persist. These are colonies with numerous queens and workers that are not so closely related. But it struck me that the "explanation", "the intelligent designer done it" is lazy, dishonest, and totally unfruitful. It explains nothing. I prefer, "We don't know (yet)" when a phenomenon is not well-understood.

It is clear that the motivation behind the "intelligent design" faddists is to try to insinuate that certain phenomena cannot have a natural explanation, therefore an unnatural one is all that we are left with. Of course, the unnatural explanation doesn't actually serve as a real explanation, and merely begs further questions, but that is not the point. It is not to seek understanding, but to promote a magical viewpoint, either explicitly or covertly. This is utterly antithetical to the spirit of science, and it is highly ironic that it has been proffered as a "rival" to science, particularly in public schools in the more backward American states.

Here is a paper on ant super colonies. It is very interesting in itself, but also interesting to note the difference in approach by real scientists, as opposed to the propagandistic bloggers at the likes of "Evolutionnews". There is no agenda on one side, and a single, determined, irrational agenda on the other. 

Evolution of supercolonies: The Argentine ants of southern Europe