 For the early history of the species selection debate, these questions were lumped together; asking whether species could be units of selection meant asking whether they fulfilled both the interactor and manifestor-of-adaptation roles. For example, early species selection advocates used a genic selectionist treatment of the evolution of altruism as a touchstone in the definition of species selection (e.g., Vrba 1984). The relevant argument is that kin selection could cause the spread of altruistic genes but that it should not be called group selection (Maynard Smith 1976). Again, this was because the groups were not considered to possess design-type adaptations themselves. Some species selectionists agreed that the spread of altruism should not be considered a case of group selection because “there is no group adaptation involved; altruism is not emergent at the group level” (Vrba 1984: 319; Maynard Smith gives different reasons for his rejection). This amounts to assuming that there must be group benefit in the sense of a design-type group-level adaptation in order to say that group selection can occur. This species selection view was that evolution by selection is not happening at a given level unless there is a benefit or engineering adaptation at that level. The early species selection position explicitly equates units of selection with the existence of an interactor plus adaptation at that level (Vrba 1983: 388); furthermore, it seems that the stronger, engineering definition of adaptation had been adopted.