Edward O. Wilson, Gilbert N. Ling, and Gilbert et al.

``Can the "social" be fully captured by inter-individual relationships? Some theorists would argue in the negative, pointing specifically to collective entities such as corporations, committees, juries, and teams. We often attribute mental or mental-like states, including beliefs, to such collective entities (Gilbert 1989, 1994; Bratman 1999; Tuomela 1995; Searle 1995). We might say, for example, that a jury was convinced that the defendant intended such-and-such, or that the jury doubted that a certain alleged conversation really took place. Collective entities are obviously "social" in an important way; and if it is granted that such entities are bearers of beliefs and other doxastic states, shouldn't these collective states be an important target for social epistemology? Precisely this is suggested by Lynn Hankinson Nelson (1993), who goes even further in proposing that the only real knowers are communities.''

Taken from SEP.

Gilbert, Bratman, Tuomela, and Searle believe that communities agree on meanings, not individuals. Searle has a book ``The Construction of Social Reality'' .

The other Gilbert, Gilbert N. Ling, believes that the parts of a cell stick together like birds of a feather. Therefore I wrote here that social behavior may start at the cellular level, in that light the recent Nature article by Wilson et al., confirms that it is very important to chose what is the unit that evolves. Now I find this jewel above:

``the only real knowers are communities.''

Things seem to me to be coming into place; unfortunately it is only in my mind, I will have to socialize it.

NYT has a piece on the Science Section by Carl Zimmer.