> From: "Deborah Cornah" <DEBCO92@psy.soton.ac.uk>
> Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 11:43:25 GMT
>
> I was wondering if you could give me a few examples of behaviour
> inconsistent with group selection (is it ants who act altruistically??).
It's not behaviour that's inconsistent with group selection: There are
plenty of examples of things that animals and people do that appear to
be for the good of their group. The problem is that, genetically
speaking, there is no such thing as the group, so nothing for it to be
for the good of!
The general problem is altruism -- whether for the good of a group or
for the good of another individual: Why would any animal do anything for
anyone but itself? For any energy or resource it uses on anyone else
but itself is stolen from itself. Any gene saying "help someone else's
gene" would quickly fail to pass on that maladaptive message, and that's
the precise reason altruism is maladaptive.
With a few exceptions: Reciprocal altruism is not maladaptive: It's safe
to help those who help you, because then you're even. (It's not safe to
help others more than they help you, though.) It's also safe to help
your children, because they are the vehicles of your genes (and hence of
that tendency to help them!). But that's about it. If there's neither
reciprocity nor kinship, it is genetically maladaptive to help others,
and any such tendency would eventually elminate itself as soon as it
became strong enough to make any difference.
Groups are unrelated or distantly related individuals, usually
competing for the same scarce resources. Doing something "for the good
of the group" would be maladaptive unless the "good of the group"
translated directly into the good of the individual (and its genes),
because individuals, not groups, are the vehicles of genes.
So, according to orthodox sociobiology, if you look closely at any
seemingly altruistic tendency that is not obviously reciprocal or
beneficial to kin then you will find it to be piggy-backing somehow on
the proximal mechanisms of reciprocal altruism or kinship (the cuckoo
fools the "kin-detector" of the bird in whose nest she lays her eggs,
and "cheaters" may sweet-talk you out of your money by pretending to be
doing something for you).
Needless to say, if this sort of deception becomes too successful it
can eliminate the sucker genes completely, so either the sucker evolves
or learns defences (to spot the cuckoo or cheater) or becomes extinct.
And to the extent that the deceiver becomes dependent on preying on the
sucker, the extinction of the victim means the extinction of the
villian too. This is not an "evolutionarily stable strategy," so things
rarely reach this pitch.
But the thing to remember is that, according to orthodox sociobiology,
there is no third way, with altruistic tendencies for the good of the
group. Wilson & Sober obviously argue otherwise. You be the judge.
Stevan
mailto:harnad@soton.ac.uk
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