In 1990, William M. Muir, Professor of Animal Sciences at Purdue University conducted this experiment. The aim was to improve egg-laying productivity by breeding the most productive chicks. ( Super Chickens).
The hens were housed in cages with nine hens per cage. Very simply, the most productive hen from each cage was selected to breed the next generation of hens.
He also followed one control group of nine average producing hens, which was left to reproduce for six generations with equal care. At the end, the control group chickens were plump, well-feathered, healthy, and actually producing more eggs than they were at the start of the experiment.
However, the Super Chickens group had evolved into a strain of hyper-aggressive hens. There are only three hens left because the other six pecked each other to death in their incessant attacks. Egg productivity has plummeted.
The super chickens had self destroyed themselves due to aggression, dysfunction, and waste. Here the most productive can be successful only by suppressing the productivity of the rest.
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Our social capital is more important than individual talent in a group activity. How far we as a whole can go depends only if we just stop trying to be Super Chickens and build our social capital.
# Margaret Hefferman
Dr Ramakanta's Ideas 