Godfrey-Smith, Peter. Darwinian populations and transitions in individuality . na, 2011.
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John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry (1995) used the phrase “major transitions” to refer
to a set of evolutionary events with particular importance in the history of life. In their original count, eight such transitions were recognized. In many of their cases, though not all, the “transition” involved the appearence of a new kind of entity or biological unit, formed by the merging or combination of simpler ones. These new biological entities include eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms, and insect societies. Michod (1999) uses the phrase “transitions in individuality” to refer to this particular kind of transition, and those are the ones I will discuss in this paper. But I will reach that topic by way of a general discussion of evolutionary processes.