Evolutionists At War Over Altruism’s Origins
An intellectual war of words has broken out between two of the world’s leading evolutionists. Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins and Harvard’s Edward Wilson have gone head to head over the evolution of altruism in the animal kingdom, and whether it can have come about as a result of something called group selection.
The subject matter of their dispute is social insects, particularly ants, which display a supreme form of altruism in that sterile workers lay down their lives for the benefit of their fertile colleagues in the colony.
Conventional Darwinian theory could not really explain why one individual should sacrifice its own life, and its precious genes, for the benefit of another individual, unless it could be viewed in terms of group selection, when indi-viduals do it for the benefit of the colony or the species.
But nearly half a century ago, scientists punched intellectual holes in the theory of group selection and pointed instead to something called kin selection, when altruism in social communities evolves as a result of one individual being closely related to a member of the same colony.
Social insects such as ants display unusual degrees of relatedness within the colony, with sister workers being more closely related to one another than to the offspring they may have. It was therefore seen as beneficial for individual sisters to sacrifice their fertility for their sister queen because of the genes they had in common.
Mathematical models supported kin selection which rose to prominence because it appeared to explain the evolution of altruism in ants and many other species. Group selection was dead in the water. But now Professor Wilson has brought it back to life in a book on ants to be published this year, and in an interview this week with New Scientist magazine.
“If you look at the literature of the theory, there are a lot of impressive-looking mathematical models but they scarcely ever come up with a real measure of anything that can be applied to nature,” he says.
This has not pleased Professor Dawkins who, while he has respect for Wilson, spent much of his early career exploding the myth of group selection, which is anathema to the “selfish gene” theory behind kin selection.
In a separate article in New Scientist, Dawkins acknowledges Wilson’s “characteristically fascinating account” of the evolution of social insects, but says: “His ‘group selection’ terminology is misleading, and his distinction between ‘kin selection’ and ‘individual direct selection’ is empty.”
What matters is natural selection at the level of the gene, not the group, he insists. “All we need ask of a purportedly adaptive trait is, ‘what makes a gene for that trait increase in frequency?’ Wilson wrongly implies that explanations should resort to kin selection only when ‘direct’ selection fails,” says Dawkins.
“Here he falls for the first of my ‘12 misunderstandings of kin selection’; that is, he thinks it is a special, complex kind of natural selection, which it is not.”
Dawkins points out that Wilson relegates kin selection to a chapter on group selection in his book Sociobiology, published in the mid-Seventies. “Evidently Wilson’s weird infatuation with ‘group selection’ goes way back; unfortunate in a biologist who is so justly influential,” he says.
Professor Wilson remains convinced that he will be proved right, and his critics wrong.
“I am used to taking the heat, and in the past I turned out to be right,” he said.
Sacrifice in the natural world
* Mothers in many animal species will risk injury and even death to protect their young. This is seen as a prime example of kin selection and can explain why people will tolerate their own children’s behaviour but not that of others.
* Many social animals demonstrate acts of altruism based on close kinship within the colony. The supreme form of altruism is seen in social insects, when individuals sacrifice their fertility and lay down their lives for the benefit of their fertile queen.
* Some species engage in what is known as reciprocal altruism, when an altruistic act is carried out in the expectation that it may be returned later on. Warning calls of birds in response to potential danger are thought to be an example of reciprocal atruism. The call puts the bird at higher risk, but it will benefit it in the long run if others reciprocate.
© 2008 The Independent
This is going to be great working out this issue!!!
Personally, I’m in Wilson’s corner. Dawkins seems kind of like a zealot.
“at war”? War? Perhaps this writer should look up the word, or, better, refer to the vicious wars currently being waged on this planet by this not very altruistic species. It sounds, instead, like reasoned debate over an issue on which they disagree. Why must journalists turn everything into a melodrama?
This is interesting, but I don’t understand why it’s on Common Dreams?
Thanks for pointing that out Oldbadgertoo.
The western world or maybe most of the human race is hung up on war…every dispute is a war and maybe that says something about Human Altruism… or maybe only the insects, birds and other animals have it.
Ps I can’t wait until the new debate on the Big Bang Theory hits Common Dreams.
Interesting article, evolutionary theory is a tad sui generis for Commondreams… unless it ties into there being US politicians who think Jesus spoke English and that the Earth is only thousands of years old.
This is on CommonDreams because the debate over evolution is a LARGE constant factor in our politics. Every significant development always matters.
There is nothing wrong with theories and ideas being “at war” with each other in search of “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. When the proponents or skeptics of those ideas, however, face off to a “war” between each other as validated persons, insisting on proudly defending their validity through their expounded ideas, well, that’s where the arguments can get too loud and spill over to politics, where we, the citizens are sitting ducks to be sacrified in the “collateral damage” from their “war”. I believe this applies equally to adamant secular scientists and to the adamant theologian/philosophers.
What children. While the evolutionists and the christian wackos fight in the playground with each other over trivia the Buddhists arent interested because they know the debate is meaningless.
Christianity’s great chain of being was used to justify the type of misery that Rene Descartes engaged in(he’s the guy who said that when a member of a non human animal species screams in pain its the same as gears in a mechanism clashing together). Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was used to justify animal torture and eugenics.
Dawkins is an idiot. He says religion is the root of all evil but forgets that humans invented religion–thus the problem is human nature.
Members of different species have been known to show altruism to members of other species, how do intellectual toddlers like these scientists explain that?
Such children. So many more important issues out there to waste time over this.
Knowledge and wisdom are too different things.
It is an unfortunate sign of the times that a scientific issue appears on Common Dreams due the fact the debate is about an aspect of evolution. Thanks to the nut bag Christian right wing whom have made it a political act to discuss portions of evolutionary theory. This debate should take place in scientific journals and workshops, not in the political arena. Instead, we are witness to a replay of sorts of the Scopes Monkey Trial. All that is missing is the carnival barkers hawking tourist junk.
let’s figure this out right here. how many altruists here? raise your hands!
If human altruism wasn’t in place then we wouldn’t be able to feel the need to go to “war” over our “leaders” needs and wants. Everything would be based on a personal level of defense. I think our leader(s) should be in the “arena” for a war since they are the “chosen few” and talk to “God”(* as so elected) they can personally fight it out.
Kelmer - Remember the story of the monk who looked into the pit to see a mother tiger and her cubs trapped and starving, seeing such pain he instantly threw himself into the pit to provide food? I like your point.
To everyone else taking sides - I know the answer, I know it! I know it! I know it! But, I’m not going to tell you!
Geoff29 is right. kelmer is right. Dawkins is at pains to promote his pet cosmology of a mechanistic material universe which catenates itself into complex structures purely through the agency of inertia and other primitive physical laws. As a scientist he correctly rejects religion (he despises it actually) or any other supernatural agency as explanations for biological phenomena and behaviors, and is thus scornful of anything smacking of teleology or purpose or mystery in the world. He maintains the viability of his robotic vision by a radical reductionism (which he notes but does not address in The Selfish Gene) and a glib speculative facility which assumes that a self serving gene (or combination of genes) exists for every conceivable behavior, notwithstanding that he can not, as a good scientist should, produce empirical evidence of the exact mechanisms he is talking about. Confronted with the apparently contradictory evidence of altruism, he becomes especially creative in defense of his theory, though one wearies of his verbal gymnastics and wishes he would take us to the microscope and show us exactly why these birds chirp the way they do.
He is quite good, but he is not as scientific as he thinks. His blind spot, I think, lies in his zealotry. Every success in the (perfectly sound) science of genetics is, for him, an affirmation of his mechanistic-materialist model and a nail in the coffin of mysticism of any kind. But he is not entitled to go so far. Science and philosophy are two different universes of discourse and one does not contain or invalidate the other except in the minds of ideological crusaders who are somehow threatened by the very existence of other paradigms. One might, for example, question the existence of matter (since they haven’t actually found any yet) and say that a molecule, absent the tiny billiard balls it is supposed to be made of, is not much distinguishable from an idea. Compared to the universe of an idealist (or a mathematician or a quantum physicist) Dawkins’ world of microscopic windup toys appears very naive and simple minded - without ceasing to be, within its own limited sphere, perfectly true.
According to Dawkins my own DNA is also hellbent on preserving itself into the future. I have often wondered why, given that most of my genetic material ends up in the washing machine, my genes have not yet contrived a way to attract women to my laundry. This argues for group selection I suppose.
In the Dawkins debate scheme, which is for some of us the pinnacle of human absurdity, but let it be, guaranteed if anyone from either way goes into that debate they will be there till, well, kingdom comes.
Oh and Vox, you are not alone. I read your posts always!!!
Well women seem to only be attracted to my laundry and not me, makes it a little weird to bring girls home.
I still don’t understand why this article appears in CommonDreams. This is an article that refers to a debate among scientists who BOTH support Evolution, in general, as the best model to explain how life has developed on Earth. Dawkins and Wilson disagree over a particular aspect of a general theory that they both agree upon.
It seem like some people are mistaking this for a debate between “evolutionists” and “creationists”? Did you actually read the article?
(Members of different species have been known to show altruism to members of other species, how do intellectual toddlers like these scientists explain that?)
As one of these ‘intellectual toddlers’ that you speak of (undergrad at Cal Berkeley, PhD in evolutionary biology at UCD) I can explain, at least to a first level of approximation, why other animals show altruism–it benefits their genes to do so. For instance, we and a particular species of escheria coli evolved together. These bacteria live in your gut and help you digest. By having them, we are able to digest a wider range of foods than we would otherwise be able to. By living in us, the bacteria gain an environment where they are guaranteed a supply of nutrients. These kind of commensal relationships occur not infrequently in nature.
The more complex an entities behavioral repetoire, the easier it is for this behavior to be co-opted to some other purpose. For instance, kin selection explains the origins of altruism. The logic of this is straightforward. If you do something that benefits a close kin, then even if it does not immediately benefit you (or even if it costs you something), then it will be of benefit to some of your genes since you and your close kin will share many of the same genes. Therefore those genes will spread. Once this kind of altruism gets bootstrapped it could *easily* be co-opted to some other purpose. I would suggest that extra-species altruism (which is what you are talking about without offering up any specific examples, but no matter) is a case of kin-selection altruism misfiring with munificent results.
Cheers
lf
(According to Dawkins my own DNA is also hellbent on preserving itself into the future. I have often wondered why, given that most of my genetic material ends up in the washing machine, my genes have not yet contrived a way to attract women to my laundry. This argues for group selection I suppose.)
Because what you *say* Dawkins’ has said isn’t what he said. Or, a bit more pointedly, you caught half the message but either haven’t finished the book (Selfish Gene) or you never read it.
What is really being discussed here is whether the capitalists or the socialists are correct: Are humans motivated always by individual self interest, or are humans motivated by altruism is some cases? In other words, are we as a specie inclined to self interet and greed alone, or does community and cooperation have an evolutionary basis. The idea being that Ayn Rand was entirely wrong in her analysis of why we do things.
This is why essay is on CommonDreams.
Using colony insects as an example is a poor analogy. Though its units appear to be separate life forms, they are not; they are detached, mobile units of one organism — the colony. It’s like asking if it’s altruism for a white blood cell to die fighting to protect the blood stream from a bacteria.
To Daran —- I think you are mis-reading the debate between Dawkins and Wilson. BOTH believe that a tendency towards altruism is “hard-wired” into human nature by evolutionary forces. They simply disagree on the best model for explaining that trait. It is a scientific question, not a moral, ethical or political question that is under debate.
Dawkins and Wilson also agree that these kinds of questions can best be explored using the scientific method and by community inquiry, as opposed to doctrinaire religous types who only seek “truth” in their politically-motivated interpretations of ancient written texts.
At this point in human history, the article above really ought to constitute “war”.
I think it’s great this article is on common dreams. Everything relates to politics somehow, and what more than our very genetic makeup? Not only that, I come to Common Dreams to read real news, not just more of the same about why Bush and Co suck and newsflashes about who may be the next president.
Let’s keep the science writing coming! How can we even try and keep creationism out of schools if we aren’t knowledgeable about what’s going on in origins science?
If you don’t like an article on here, you don’t have to read it after all.
ladyfractal
That last paragraph was supposed to be funny. You know - a kind of joke, frequently enjoyed by we lay people. I don’t think Dawkins believes that my genes are actually trying to escape from my laundry.
The rest of my post was serious however, and I could go on at some length about the blind spot Dawkins encounters when he gets out of the science that is his proper element. I have no problem with science, or with Darwinism or genetics as he describes it. I’m sure the nuts and bolts of genetic science are complicated, but the theory and ramifications of it, as Dawkins fairly brilliantly describes it. are not difficult to understand.
It was his book about God that I couldn’t finish. I made it to about page 20 before I got embarrassed for him and had to put it away. My own postgraduate work is in philosophy, and by his own admission D is not conversant with philosophical systems.
Gotta go now and fish a spider out of the toilet.
the nature of the species, of male and female, and of the different species, and ultimately of the universe, is one of the essential pivotal debates at this period in history. these days proof is required it seems.
in a certain sense, science is working on the same issues that we debate on an ethical level here at CD on a daily basis.
I mean, the issue of spending so much time and resources on war or saving ourselves and the planet, seems to be the debate on the political realm as well.
There is no such thing as altruism. In philosophical terms culture is much too complicated to suggest that an individual has nothing to gain by laying down their life. Now when the word gets applied to genes it becomes misleading. We are talking about genetic “altruism”, not in the philosophical sense. In these terms it means that genes are hard wired to destruct before passing on their genetic material through reproduction. As if reproduction were the only drive an organism had. This reductionist theory of organisms behavior is problematic in it’s nature. To try and reduce behavior of complex animals, be it humans or incests, to a cellular level is very tricky and dangerous. Often it disregards the complexity, and differences of culture as a driving mechanism behind behavior. Trying to form a universal theory at this time is foolish. I don’t think we yet have the tools we need to make such sweeping reductionist statements and am not sure if we will ever be able to untangle it sufficiently. Sociobiologists and Evolutionary Psychologists love to take the complexity of individuals behavior and fit it neatly into little packages called genes. That’s quite a mess to present so neatly. Science is an ever changing study but there are many ego’s, career’s, and life’s work wrestling here. This is a great example of how science is internally political and not just socially. Just remember best selling books on science become obsolete very quickly. I think we need to see more science articles on CommonDreams, after all isn’t it breaking news and views?
ladyfractal,
“intellectual toddlers”. Don’t worry about, kelmer always calls people he disagrees with childish. He’s done it in other posts. I’d like to see toddlers standing around discussing the nuances of evolutionary theory! Nice to have someone scientifically literate here.
ladyfractal: “animals show altruism–it benefits their genes to do so. For instance, we and a particular species of escheria coli evolved together. These bacteria live in your gut and help you digest.”
Perhaps you could explain why this symbiosis is altruism. Maybe I’m wrong, but gut-bugs seem a very indirect example - what behavior do they exhibit that may be to its disadvantage but that benefits others of its kind, or it’s host?
Genes don’t eat, defend, have sensory organs or tend young. Evolution, since the first primordial soup, cannot be explained solely by chemicals in a large vat. Which mix together more frequently than others? Nonsense. There’s obviously a dialectic between genetics and social organization/manifestation/instantiation.
It’s clear that many evolutionary thinkers have hampered themselves by writing in their own extreme selfishness. They then spend their whole careers trying to undo and explain aspects of their own extreme viewpoints.
I’m interested in a very special sort of altruism mwhich Aldous Huxley and others have written about — the person who jumps into traffic to pull out a stranger’s child. The soldier who rushes into a raging battlefield to pull out a fallen comrade, etc. These are examples of altruism unrelated to genetic advantage. Purely social, and perhaps not even that. Rescuing a total stranger’s child who is about to be killed is probably a knee-jerk reaction in most of us. We’ve got compassion there, in our makeup. Let’s use it at will, deliberately, not just at extreme instances. Huxley touches on this as well.
This debate just goes to show that scientists are like politicians: governed by their egos. When it comes to a debate about finding the truth, who cares about who has or has not been found to be right in the past. These so-called scientists care more about winning and about their reputations than they do about the truth. Just goes to show: science is another branch of politics.
Yes, shame Common Dreams, the “war” headline is tabloid journalism, and feeds into the prejudices of those who believe evolution is just a theory and think their foolishness is confirmed every time there is an academic debate about some detail of the evolutionary process (http://www.blognow.com.au/mrpickwick/Evolution/). Me, I’m probably on the Wilson side in this one. Other examples of altruism among some birds are the “helpers at the nest” - offspring of a pair from previous years who instead of moving out stay to help raise subsequent generations. If they do this successfully then the group, including the genes that promoted this behaviour, is advantaged over a pair trying to raise young by itself. I don’t know about the mathematics, but intuitively, advantaging a group that contains other copies of your genes is a route to evolutionary success in the long term (though it may well be a slower process than individual selection).
A: Dawkins is obsessed with being right about EVERYTHING, thus displaying the arrogance and incuriosity he ascribes to religious people.
B: There is a parallel here to less-publicized debates over the genesis and ongoing creation and acquisition of language. Chomsky and his ilk argue that a “language machine” resides in the brain and is responsible for every aspect of language acquisition and use, or at least is the only factor worth studying. This leads him to a disdain for anyone who helps people with autism find alternate means of expression - Chomsky says it is a waste of effort, as “their langauge machines are broken” (no, not kidding, he really said it). Others, including Dell Hymes and many sociolinguists, have persuasively argued - to the point that most of us take this insight for granted without knowing its origin - that language and culture are inseperable, intertwined products of human life. Kids learn language in different wasy in different cultures, language has an interactive relationship with cultural norms (e.g. who gets to talk when, and what about), language creates categories and is created by them. Language is narrative, not mathematics.
Why is this relevant? Because scientists like Dawkins who are obsessed with destroying anything ineffable or mysterious, anything that can’t be numerated - these folks are deaf to the music of existence, whether you believe that the universe has intelligence behind it or not. Even if they are right that there is no compassion or intelligence at the heart of existence, they are clearly making false claims of certainty about their own disciplines. This should give pause to those who want to join the chorus of alleged progressives calling religion a “mental illness.” If you’ve listened to Dawkins and Hitchens speak at length, you will wonder what alternate illness they suffer from - it certainly isn’t the illness of joy, grace or happiness.
I believe, for reasons of direct experience, not doctrine or religious scripture, that the universe is in fact alive and aware, and that there is more to the picture than any human explanation, religious or scientific, can encompass. I revel in my ignorance, because it means that there is beauty, life, mystery, creative potential. I know many scientists and social scientists who are devoid of arrogance, and who are in love with the complexity and unknowability of the earth. Why do we only seem to hear from the ones who hate uncertainty, who loathe any trace of mystical searching or creative expression? Perhaps it is the same reason we only hear from Christians and Muslims who are sure they have all the answers.
From procreation to co-creation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbOqyDLGa1M
Replace indi-vidual with ‘inter-vidual’ recognizing the breadth of interactive evolution going on and the picture loses its human hegemonic interpretation value. Its a shame the analysis isn’t based on study of human consumption, waste and pollution and education dynamics. Perhaps altruism transcends species, instinct, conditioning and culture and is simply the manefestation of electrobiochemical interviduation of integrated life forms.
I do not “tolerate my children’s behaivor.”
Does this help explain why the Republicans are “eating their own”?
No, muggles, we are not “deaf to the music of existence”. How dare you think that you are superior to me because you have swallowed some particular piece of religious dogma (http://www.blognow.com.au/mrpickwick/80808/Copyright_on_values.html)? How dare you thnk you have exclusive access to “joy, grace or happiness” because you believe in some mystical nonsense from long ago? And what you believe about the universe? The universe doesn’t care. It is simply there, and knowable only through science.
I am not convinced that there really is enough altruism out there to speak of. I mean, when you factor in all the war and other nasty, selfish things we and other creatures do to each other, isn’t it a wash? I agree with samski - symbiotic relationships don’t count as altruism. Altruism is a much rarer and more selfless act, which is not motivated by expected payoffs (or at least not immediate payoffs). I had an idea once for a website, and I checked out the availability of “altruism.com” It was already owned and up for sale by some outfit which was bragging about the big bucks it had got for some other domain names.
Community and cooperation are quite often in the individual’s self interest. Not mutually exclusive.
Also, the debate is about the origin of altruism. An interesting debate to be sure, but unrelated to politics. However this instinct evolved, we are far more than pure instinct now. We’re not just ants doing as our genetic programming demands. We are rational beings and there is ample empirical evidence to show that people will vote against their individual self-interests if politicians can make a case that doing so is the fair thing for everyone.
This is what the Democrats have forgotten. Even though they promote *slightly* more progressive policies, they now do so using frames that fit the conservatarian/Ayn Rand paradigm in order to appeal to individual self-interest. Democrats did much better back when they skipped this step and made a direct appeal to the individual’s basic sense of fairness. This will remain true regardless of the outcome of this debate about the genetic underpinnings of altruism’s evolutionary origin.
For more than 25 years in the United States, the leaders of both major political parties have attempted to reach us through the more selfish aspects of our nature. Although this is sometimes done with good intentions, the overall effect, IMO, has been a self-reinforcing drift both individually and collectively toward an overemphasis of these very same selfish aspects. When you do something nice for someone, do you sometimes feel that you have to explain it in a way that suggests that you really acting in your own self-interest even though it doesn’t really feel that way in your heart?
Deep inside, we all know that something is deeply deeply wrong even if we can’t put our finger on it. It’s just not supposed to be this way. It’s speculation, but I sometimes wonder if that’s why we take more mood altering drugs than the rest of the world combined. Is it just to help us deal with the disconnect that we’re feeling?
Altruism is not necessarily a choice, instinct, unconscious or otherwise. Everything we do effects the lives of other species and the biological environment. Some actions are good or bad for some species. Over the long term local environmental systems do better and all their inhabitants do better when their cumulative actions enrich the local environment. The individuals of the successful local systems reproduce and spread. Environment trashers like humans may be successful in the short term as long as they can continue to find environments to live in, and can find more resources and victims to exploit. Unfortunately the human environments have gone global, but not because they are near to being long term sustainable, by the reciprocal benefits they do not bestow on the system that still supports them.
So lets give thanks to all those individuals who have by one means or another removed themselves from the human gene pool, to contribute to our success. All of the dead soldiers of all the wars. National Patriotism is altruism, whether you want it or not. And all those colonial countries that have sacrificed their freedoms, comforts and live styles so that the US of I can have a few short centuries of consumptive glory. Wow, thats altruism. And those religious zealots, so good in recognizing the chosen few, and the rest of us to rot in hell. And us social climbers, so aware of whats cool and what isn’t, and what constitutes the individual worth to society. We are so altruism transaction aware of reciprocal worth that its not funny, its real money. And the low life get to do the dirty tasks for the cream cakes at the top. Looks like a society of ants to me.
(Perhaps you could explain why this symbiosis is altruism. Maybe I’m wrong, but gut-bugs seem a very indirect example - what behavior do they exhibit that may be to its disadvantage but that benefits others of its kind, or it’s host?)
Samski:
It *is* an indirect example, I was talking about how the process gets bootstrapped but this was not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject matter. Merely, I was just trying to illustrate that A> one can get to extra-species altruistic behavior and B> an example of symbiosis where, in fact, the species aren’t even really conscious of one another’s presence but where they still have a mutually beneficial relationship. This isn’t the best forum for highly technical conversations so sometimes, in the name of efficiency, I’ll skip over (otherwise necessary) details.
Cheers
lf
Does it really matter what the basis of altruism is (what difference does it make?). For the sake of humanity, the important question is whether we are capable of choosing to be altruistic for our own collective benefit or whether we are destined to always be in some sort of petty conflict.
Can humans collectively work together for the benefit of ALL or not? If not presently, are we smart enough to learn how to or are we destined to always be at the whim of a few “bad apples”?
Anyhow, nobody really knows for sure, but we will soon find out.
Many single celled organisms thrive by virtue of cooperative behavior. Perhaps they are actually more evolved than humanity!! They certainly have been around much longer than we have.
the subject is most interesting. those of us who don’t believe human evolution was at any point influenced by divine or extraterrestrial beings must come to terms with altruism and, at a more general level, with the rise of good and evil in a primate species. i associate it with the origins of language, which requires both the invention of symbols and a spirit of cooperation. words are general symbols for specific things and the creators of a language must agree on their meaning and on syntaxis and grammar. by creating a universe of symbols of which we are a part, we parted company with the instinctual world and became human. at the same time, all that which is cooperative became symbolized into what is good and that which is not, especially when it is unnecessary or deceiving, with evil. understanding the cooperative nature of our humanity is key, not just to silence creationists but to find the ultimate common grounds for our common dreams!!!
eduardo.villagran@gmail.com
ladyfractal, anyone: What about a person who decides not to procreate, thereby sacrificing his or her precious genes?
evolutionary fundamentalists are just that, and their debates (?) over what kind of unexplainable animal universe we belong to may be even a little more boring than religious fundamentalsts fighting over what god told them about that world…and possibly as destructive.
big bang theory is like jesus or moses or mohammed theory…fun for any wise-ass who thinks it’s the truth, unexplainable for any thinking person, who will be better served to deal with what we can, or should, understand about social systems, economics, ruling powers and working to change them to benefit most, if not all, instead of only some of humanity… dull stuff like that…
fs
The answer seems obvious . ..
Nature is not suicidal —
And, that’s why — IMO — there are usually questions raised about the human species which acts so contrary to nature’s interests.
And, which, btw, has brought the planet to near death.
In particularly, the questions about humans center on our being a “hybrid” species —
And, whether the male of the species is legimate or whether an accident of some kind — a broken X?
eduardov - I appreciate what you say regarding symbols and language.
What about mathamatical language —- could it be unifying? Of course, then we need to come to “terms” with the concepts of zero and infinity, which I have some personal opinions on myself outside the scope of this topic.
Regardless, I’m glad CommonDreams had this article. Sometimes all of the “political stuff” gets tiresome.
Peace,
Ken
I read The Selfish Gene many years ago and thought it was nonsense then–still do. Perhaps we need a revival of interest in Peter Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution (1902). Kropotkin’s book, one of the true classics of anarchist literature, is still in print (ISBN: 1406536555) and is available on-line at http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents.html
Whether kin selection alone accounts for the evolution of altruism, or whether group selection in some form should also be considered a part of the Darwinian selection mechanism that has made us what we are, is a purely scientific question which should not be invested with such ideological significance.
For reasons that have long been well understood, group selection can be at most a very weak mechanism, and one that can’t hold against selfish genes spreading within the group. But a naive interpretation of kinship selection does not tell us everything about altruism and the basis of society in insects or humans. Obviously people are often willing to sacrifice themselves for others who are not even distant cousins.
In any case, this ought not to be a Right-Left issue. If kinship selection is true and group selection is false, this does not mean that invading Iraq was a good idea or that single-payer health insurance is a bad one.
here is the difference, frank. truth, as far as i can tell, is that on which a fairly large number of thinking people can agree without raising the pitch of their voices; such as, “the sky is blue.” of course, there will always be a loony who insists that the sky is green or that people see colors differently regardless of the nature of light and of the atmosphere and the laws of optics that also rule our eyes. from the sky is blue to the big bang, black holes, relativity, quantum mechanics and the rest is just a matter of degree; of the incremental honing of our physical and intellectual senses and of course, a lot of honest hard work. what is frustrating, at times, is to realize that our primate senses and brains can only take us so far, and that is as far as our nature will allow us to shed light on the amazing universe around us!!
amen.
eduardo.villagran@gmail.com
conscience - as a male, I would like to proclaim legitimacy. Like you said nature is not suicidal and us males are here to stay aren’t we?
From the anarchists …. “Mutual Aid” by Petr Kropotkin made this argument over a century ago.
He was hearing the arguments of ’social darwinism’, and decided that what he saw in the natural world didn’t fit the theory that its all dog-eat-dog and we are all doomed to fight and kill each other to try to survive.
Nice of these guys to finally start to catch up on the 100 year plus learning curve they’ve obviously missed out on.
What an incredicle collegium. Reminds me of Athens in the day. A “teacher” lays out a text and the students engage each other, or not. Engorge yourselves at the Feast of Minds. No other such forum has ever existed on such a scale in the history of our species. Global. And no calories.
Vox, hope the spider got out ok.
Peace.
teicher January 10th, 2008 5:14 pm
Thanks for the Kropotkin reference. Didn’t think this was konsidered anarky. The opening page is enough to generate an interest to read in full. Anarchy does mean “Leaderless” doesn’t it? I know. So scary we kill people for it. And yes, once an Absolute/Dualistic society concretizes infantilism, it will generate the “scientific” proofs to sustain their psychosis.
Pieces of 8.
We should not forget that it is very hard to apply Darwin’s findings on humans and thus try to understand animal behaviour by comparing it to ourselves. We humans are all mad. Thanks to extreme circumstances a long time ago – climate change most probably – we rapidly grew an enormous brain. The actual size of this brain and how well it functions differs largely from person to person. Careful partner selection does not really help securing your offspring, since wide variations occur when new chromosomes are formed. Just take a close look at your brothers and sisters. In any case most people’s brains are too big to simply serve them for natural needs. So we play with our brains, we create culture, we freak out and we go against any selfish and/or altruist logic by killing one another. We humans are well beyond natural selection. We outsmarted nature. We do as we please. Soon we will collectively run into the abyss, or so it seems. There is a certain notion of natural selection in that. The freaks won’t last in the end.
I cringe at these types of popular science stories (and I am talking both about the article and the subjects of the story).
In the article, the author writes, “Mothers in many animal species will risk injury and even death to protect their young. This is seen as a prime example of kin selection and can explain why people will tolerate their own children’s behaviour but not that of others.”
“Can” should be “may,” as in “This…MAY explain why people will tolerate their own children’s behavior but not that of others.” We don’t know. No behavioral gene governing such behavior has ever been found nor is there any empirical basis for inferring such a gene. Indeed, “may” is a serious problem in light of the fact that the homo sapiens doesn’t have instincts.
Moreover, is it really true that people tolerate their own but not the other in all cultures throughout time? (You would have to make sure this is true before a genetic explanation could even be considered possible.) Is it true in gatherer-and-hunter societies where communities raise children?
Parenting is learned both from one’s parents and from the larger context in which one and one’s parents are socialized. Societies that socialize people to be self-centered and exclusive produce parents who care less for children who are not their own. Societies that socialize people to be altruistic and inclusive produce parents who care more for children who are not their own.
The members of some societies are horrified when their governments kill the children of other countries. Some others, like US, care very little about whether their government slaughters the children of other countries.
There is very little relative genetic variation across cultures and history. This is in contrast to the highly variable character of social behavior and culture across time and place. These realities make the claim that parents tolerate their own children before other parents’ because of a genetic trait highly problematical.
This is the trouble with these just-so stories that sociobiologists are so fond of articulating and that the late Stephen J. Gould so smartly and devastatingly criticized. It’s misuse of evolutionary principles.
It’s also reactionary ideology. Why is there racism, rape, and war? For sociobiologists it’s because of kin selection, selfish genes, and territorial imperative. But we know that we have no need to explain such things this way. Racism, rape, and war have a social origin. Because of this, a biological explanation cannot work. This is just as true for parents who don’t care about other people’s children.
(By the way, the bullet point I’m criticizing is false as a general statement. Parents routinely tolerate other children’s behavior more than they tolerate their own children’s behavior. I see kids running around acting crazy at the mall, but you won’t see me yelling at them to settle down. I wouldn’t dare. But when my kids do that, I’m quick to control their behavior. Why? Because, in my culture (I live in the United States), there’s a strong social norm against punishing other people’s children. I have seen parents try to correct other people’s children and suffer the consequences of violating that norm. No genetic explanation is required in either case.)
Dawkins follows very much in the tradition of Huxley. He believes the best science comes from a certain level of confrontation and contest, and since Gould has croaked, he needs fresh blood (if you can call the octagenarian Wilson “fresh”). I think it’s great drama, kind of 19th century, you know?
Kropotkin is an excellent name-drop here. Social Darwinism reached its zenith, undoubtedly, somewhere around the time of the height of the British Empire. So today science can more properly strike a balance, a dialetic, between individual vs. social dynamics. The analysis needs to include competition within groups, and competition between groups. Cooperation within groups, and cooperation between groups.
I’d like to point out that, technically speaking, if mammals were run strictly by individual self-interest we’d all be dead. The mother-offspring bond (mammary glands), weaning period, etc. is one of the very hallmarks of our class. Mammalian young probably present more of a drain than any advantage to the mother. Especially in the more solitary mammals, it would technically be in her best interests to simply abandon offspring at birth. But this extreme every-individual-to-themselves scenario doesn’t happen. Mothers especially are biologically programmed against it.
And in the human case, children are such a financial burden that many forego parenthood altogether. There’s self-interest, but no evolutionary advantage in that case. Then some have made the argument that childless couples (including homosexuals) actually do confer a social evolutionary advantage — if they have nephews/nieces, they can name them in their wills.
djan and others,
if you are interested, i recommend “the symbolic species: the evolution of language and the brain,” terrence deacon, (new york: norton, 1997.
d’ailleurs, nothing lasts, in the end. but also, if one removes divine and extraterrestrial beings from the discussion, there is no point of comparison, no reference but ourselves; and the rest of the animal kingdom, if you wish. life, including ours, becomes an exploration or an unheeded and unique proposal and there is no room for pessimism or self flagelation!!! nobody has done it before and nobody has done it better. our conscience is also part of ourselves; no living being flagelates itself and so far life in general has done quite an astounding, if sometimes paradoxical, job!!!
cheers,
eduardo
Well said, wwsword! Props to those who mentioned Kropotkin.
These men agree, by slightly different reasoning, that unselfishness is really selfishness.
If love is missing from my life perhaps it is because love doesn’t exist. If truth is missing from my life perhaps it is because truth doesn’t exist. If I choose to be unloving and dishonest in my life, perhaps I’m not choosing at all, perhaps my genes are choosing for me, perhaps I’m unloving and dishonest by nature; the cause could be evolution, the cause could be creation, the cause could be Bush/Cheney or the caucuses or Dan Quayle.
Much of what goes for science is no more than people trying to justify their own choices in life. Much of what goes for religion is no more than people trying to justify their own choices in life. Much of what goes for politics is no more than people trying to justify their own choices in life.
Please don’t waste your life trying to justify the choices you make; be honest and loving; these choices require no justification.
Be circumspect about all leaders, scientific, religious, political, or otherwise who encourage you to believe they have insights you lack; they rarely do.
“And in the human case, children are such a financial burden that many forego parenthood altogether. There’s self-interest, but no evolutionary advantage in that case.”
Paul Bramscher: There are lots of reasons that people forgo parenthood, among them concern for the natural world, concern for what the future holds, concern for other people’s children, concern for other domesticated mammals. Evolutionary advantage is a myth in a world where the future doesn’t exist anymore. You can’t tell that to your genes, but your genes don’t run every aspect of your life, do they?
This article is an excellent example of how science actually works. Somebody makes an hypothesis. Somebody makes a counterhypothesis. Both sides develop data to support or refute the hypotheses. It gets messy and science advances.
Bill
As someone who believes in a personal God who caused and sustains all existence, (I am neither Deist nor fundamentalist literalist religious fanatic)I have found most of the above discussion amusing, enlightening (into the thought processes of those devoted to the various denominations of the “Church” of evolution from which I dissent), at times confusing, insightful and confirming my own faith as oppossed to those views of others.
I want to thank those with whom I profoundly disagree for being (for the overwhelming most part) agreeable in their dissent from each other. You have helped me feel some of your conviction, frustration, hope, optimism and our common humanity. With no sarcasm or irony intended, may God bless you all.
As with all “evolutionists” the mentioned scientists in the article are “childish” in their published works not because they play and frolic like children but because they limit their thought, or at least their stated view, to a narrow interpretation without giving a real scientific explanation that could explain their intransigence.
Where all of the so-called “evolutionists” get lost on this subject is in ascribing a non-existent trait called “instinct” to the other animal genera which don’t use written languages. The other animals have brains, therefore they have minds-ergo they THINK!
Birds are not born with a genetic imprint of a nest but design a nest that is suitable to their body type, using the material that they can best manipulate with their type of beaks, claws and wings. When humans denegrate the other animals by denying them the ability to think for themselves, or to see in color, it is the humans who are actually denigrating themselves by exhibiting their own stupidity. You can be sure that the birds couldn’t care less if humans can’t interpret their phonetic language and they will continue to build nests that ascetically appeal to them and they will always see the world in the richness of it’s natural colors, even as the human dummies do their best to make that world bland.
Genetic modification of species could be considered a wide spread violation of basic natural social behavior.
Scientifically literate is an oxymoron.
And Mark, nothing is completely defined scientifically.
A male and female mate, two zygotes combine and form a new strand of DNA — identical to neither of the parents (genetic modification). Which part of evolution do the Creationists ultimately disagree with?
The part that children come from their parents?
Or that healthier/stronger/cooperative (anything that might lend an advantage) individuals have more children?
A female monkey and a male rainbow trout mate and two zygotes combine and form a new strand of DNA?A (selection is part of mating)
A scientist and a creationist could mate and become parents but would thier zygotes exist in a linear paradox?
liberals = humanists = altruistic
conservatives = bestialists = greedy
When a polar bear and grizzly bear reproduce, what do you call that?
A treefrog?
Enough with the ants already - how about some research into why Americans have chosen insatiable greed over altruism, and then further research into a pill to reverse the death spiral.
Very funny. I was actually hoping someone had an explanation since as species they no longer recognize each other for purposes of reproduction. The fact that it resulted in a $45,000 trophy kill was incidental, I guess.
Great reading. I love the mysteries of the universe and I love scientific advances.
For me, on this particular issue, I’ll just keep it simple: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Treefrog: you may want to read up on cladistics and concepts of hybridization. Keep in mind that since we live in anti-science times, millions of species (especially insects and sea life) remain unknown or undescribed to science. Others are miscataloged as separate species. Still others produce disagreements among scientists. I can probably count on a single hand the number of zoologists in my entire state.
You’ve heard of jackasses/mules I assume. Domesticated since like 4000 BC, but they are almost always sterile hybrids of donkeys/horses. Different species can sometimes interbreed. No mystery. “Species” is not a bunch of discrete boxes separated by hardcore dualistic categories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics
Someone needs to channel S.J. Gould and point out the flaws with the reductive geneticism that both Wilson and Dawkins embrace.
O wait…Gould DID dispatch both Wilson and Dawkins while he was alive.
And so did Richard Lewontin, who–happily–is still alive, and can be counted on to reprise his criticisms.
Altruism is a volitional act. A decision. A decision is made when there is a choice. With choice we enter the realm of morality. When a being is capable of making the choice, a conscious, volitional choice, then he is making a moral choice. Does morality belong to the insect world? Where does one draw the line? What about the “taster” in the rat world? Is he making a moral choice? Or has he been chosen - by some (for us) secret criteria - to sacrifice himself for the rat colony? I would, if I were you, dear experts, look to those beings closer to us and try to solve this riddle first.
Another point: when we human beings serve other human beings on a voluntary basis, we get a surge of “good feelings” and our immune systems are boosted. A win-win situation. Is altruistic behavoir rewarded in ALL species this way?
KIM RAT. Very valid points. Although I love debate and argument, this issue is really a very simple one from the real world perspective. Just be good and help, and if you can’t be good nor help, then I know of plenty who would give of their time ALTRUISTICALLY to help a person in need.
Sorry to say this - but the very fact that neither of these two ‘highly evolved’ beings is prepared to concede even an inch ( the “My mathematical model ,not yours ,is the only Way to the Truth and the Light” mindset ) -gives the lie to their most elaborately contrived theories of Altruism.
In the words of Aldous Huxley :’Evolutionary progress is of two kinds:general all round progress and one sided progress in a particular direction …Even among the highest types evolution can continue to be genuine progress only if certain conditions are fulfilled..First of all an organism must advance..along the whole biological front and not with one part of itself or in one particular direction only.One sided specialized advance is incompatible with genuine progress..That species will make the most progress whose members are least combative , most inclined to work together instead of against each other..”
Human society would be a better place if Kropotkin was a household name and few had heard of Darwin or Rand.
(nothing against Darwin personally. Rand I might enjoy smacking personally. ha.)
To luckylefty : I would say a better working definition of Anarchy would be “No Sovereign”. Leaders are necessary for transmission of knowledge and organization, but not forever.
Think of a group of people hiking in the woods, the trail is likely narrow, and in any case SOMEONE will end up in front. Perhaps they best know the way, or are the best navigator generally, or can follow a trail better than the rest of the group. Perhaps it is as simple as that they are right in the middle in terms of fitness and so will set the best overall pace.
Whatever the reason, as long as there is a reason, their leadership is legitimate. But only temporarily. It is highly unlikely that the person best fit to lead the hike will also be the best at other aspects of the experience -spotting mushrooms/berries to eat, catching fish or game, seting up camp, cooking, telling stories, singing songs, recording the experience, mediating conflicts, etc, etc.
Therefore to allow one person or group of persons to lead in all aspects violates logic and practicality this is the first part of “No Sovereignty” or Anarchy:
No one is the general “Leader” because no one is genuinely qualified to be so.
So you say: “If the leader was an expert and the rest of the group novices at journeys in the woods, then it would make sense for them to lead in all of these aspects”.
But this would not hold true over time. On the first day of the first trek, sure the “Expert” would take charge, but on the second day, or the third, or the next trek, or the next, other members would have developed skills in one or many aspects. All Masters begin as Novices, after all. Eventually, multiple group members would be the best qualified to lead in multiple areas, whether the “Expert” has been assisting them in learning or not. And what kind of genuine Leader does not teach others their knowledge?
So the second part of “No Sovereign”:
A “Sovereign” is a Perpetual Leader, this is impractical as knowledge is not the exclusive right or power of the Leader, but something that has been aquired by him, and therfore can be aquired by all.
Also, no Person, and no creation of people -machine, society, government, economy, or any other Structure - is Immortal, or Indestructable. Everything must adhere to the creation-destruction cycle, this is true. But it is also true that out and out Death or Destruction is not the only danger that Creations face. What I mean is that the cycle is not an either/or, “one side of the coin, or the other” kind of proposition, what is vibrant one day might be less so the next day, but doubly so the day after.
So, flexibility MUST be built into the Leadership process for the organization or group to be Truly Sustainable and Resilient.
This applies even when assigning as “Sovereign” the “Demos” or People as Democracies attempt to do. The fact that the individual people who make up the People are always changing alters nothing, and in fact can worsen the outcome. The Sovereign will still be naturally undermined, because of the first two reasons above, but in addition, because of the constantly changing faces of the individual “representatives” of the People or “servants” of the State it is possible to be fooled into thinking that change is occuring when in fact it is not.
Few of those who scheme to murder the King truly wish to melt down the Crown and distribute the profits to the peasantry, they find they admire its beauty once it rest on their own head, and or loathe to relinquish it.
———————-
Anyway, just some Ideas to clarify things from the Anarchist perspective, it is useful to remember two things:
1) Anarchy has almost always been defined by its detractors, or those with a vested interest in Sovereignty of some kind, so the confusion that swirls around the Idea is not surprising at all, though unfortunate. Democracy was equally bewildering to a 17th Century Englishman, as mostly Royalists had discussed it.
2) To add to the Confusion, the circumstances of History have conflated Anarchy with Leftist concepts like Socialism and Communism, but this is mostly because of the interactions of persons, not of Ideas. While an individual Anachist thinker might utilize aspects of Socialist thought, or Communistic Ecomomics, Anarchy itself is Anti-Statist, and so at odds with BOTH the “Right” AND the “Left” since these are almost always Statist.
———————————-
A truly objective outlook would see Government as a sad necessity, but the Nation-State, and Soveriegnty in general as just two inter-related takes on organization.
And not the best ones at that.
If you like “Mutual Aid” you should move on to “The Conquest of Bread” for some more “solution-oriented” Kropotkin.
————————–
On the Article itself:
Personally, Mega-Yawns, but I can see how it might be interesting to the more “scientifically” minded, and its Certainly a nice change of topic.
There’s more to my “Dreams” than just politics and I’m sure I have that in “Common” with many others.
Its cool that CD can keep things broad even during “presidential Primary” hoopla.
thanks for doing so,
-matti.
Altruism is a trait of an individual. In this news article it is shown that a gorilla has altruism, therefore the gorilla has feelings which are no different in their kind than human emotions.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE4D71F31F934A2575BC0A960958260
When a supposedly “wild” animal defends it’s offspring it is because they love their children and not because they are trying to perpetuate some “evolutionist’s” idea of an ingrained or genetically imprinted data set. When the “evolutionist’s” realize that the lower animals use their brains for actual thinking they might then come to the surprising conclusion that some individual animals can be actually physically smarter than some humans, and that instead of their narrow compartmentalizations they should broaden their horizons and acknowledge that a mind may have limitations but it still calculates and that dispells the notion that the other animals on the planet merely react or respond to stimuli.
conscience said “nature is not suicidal .”
By “Nature” I think you mean the Natural world, and, I have to disagree with you. You need to think at the microbe level here. Nature is frequently suicidal. Yeast kill themselves off in a vat of beer. Many viruses kill the host, and in so doing, kill themselves. Gangrene is a self-destructive bacteria that does this too.
And so, IMHO, is the human race. You see, whether or not they know it, yeast in my tub of beer kill themselves off 100% of the time. They never realize that there’s a bigger world up there to worry about and that God (that would be me) is not the least bit interested in their individual or colonial plight.
I’m only interested in making good tasting bathtub beer; I’m only interested in the yeast world after they kill each other off and I can reach down from alckie heaven, and scoop up all that glorious alcohol that I manipulated them into making for me.
Who dares to say that God doesn’t like beer?
Huh?
(and how would something so insignificant as a man like you know anyway? Have you ever met the drunk?) The world is way crueler than you can possibly imagine.
Evolution is a beautiful thing. It creates beauty out of bloodshed. Just like the Republican Party tries to do (and fails.)
The scope of Wilson’s book ends at the ant level, which is pretty far down the chain. I think people are sensitized to evolutionary implication and so start spinning things out of proportion. Human altruism isn’t even mentioned. I don’t think Dawkins or Wilson would venture saying higher human emotion is directly governed by kin OR group selection.
Let’s hypothesize a Sophe’s choice scenario where a mother is required to select 1) her child who is a vicious little shit and everyone knows it 2) the sweet neighbor’s daughter. I don’t think anyone would object that answering the thought experiment with “2″ is in anyway implausible.
Further,
These two Titans of theoretical academia are just ants compared to Darwin or our modern day “naturalists” i.e. geneticists, who base their fieldwork on less ego-pumped philosophy and more actual observation, as was done in the days of the voyage of “The Beagle.”
Wilson’s “Consillience,” for instance, seems a brilliant work on the benefits of the genetically inherited behavior of an ant colony and argues for altruism being inherited, then goes into the merger of sciences of chemistry and physics (which is brilliant; but he had nothing to do with that) but then midway devolves into barely tolerable filler text full of wild speculation and absurd connections of disparate humanities merged with science. What a shame.
These are just men.
I am inclined, however, to favor the position of Wilson that Altruism is an evolutionary mechanism, not decipherable by any one gene or even combination of genes, and that successful organisms, in social bond, utilize it to gain favor with other members of the community.
Contributions to charity organizations like United Way were almost expected at my company as proof of one’s worth to the larger community (never mind the fact that the CEO of United Way threw lavish parties and bought a learjet to zip himself around in at hungry people’s and the donor’s expense.) I was told that I wasn’t “doing my share.” What horsechit. I was at the time supporting 19 people in asia, unrelated to me or my wife. 100% of my money made it to feed kids. Only 50% of the United Way funds were making it to mouths at the time. What a rippoff!
What they really wanted was CONTROL of my money using Altruism as a guilt mechanism to get that behavior out of me. I wonder if it works that way down in the ant colony?
It sure as helll works that way in your church! Put some $$$ in the plate (so we can buy some IED’s… I mean some bibles for the missionaries in Bagdad!)
My admiration for science and for the beautiful natural world created by natural selection which resulted in Evolution knows no bounds. My contempt for the blatant hypocrisy of religion is greater, I suspect, than even Dawkins, but I have yet to read him.
Fascinating thread by some of the most amazing minds I’ve encountered on an open forum.
Bravo, CD, for your commitment to free speech. May you soon replace cable!
Paul Bramsher
Thank you for the link, while interesting I found it difficult to explain the recent and probably only example in recorded history (in the wild) of a polar/grizzly offspring. None of the usual aspects that support reproduction exists in this example, except that 200 millions ago they evolved as a single species. The Jackass/mule/burro are domesticated and I don’t see the significance for comparison?
Anti-science is anything outside of scientific thought, is it anti-science to question the validity of a self-pertuating school of thought at the exclusion of everything else?
This is fine on Common Dreams. It should serve to illustrate to Crackationists and Wingnuts that truth is found through debate of issues supported by evidence with ongoing refinement of ideas.
I like reading books by both of these men. Currently I lean towards Dawkins, but then I’m in the middle of reading the God Delusion.
Reciprocal altruism in the birds probably started by random mutation and evolved into a prominent trait after generations of selection in an environment. But the birds do not understand why.
Humans might have evolved the ability to logically see the self-benefit of reciprocal altruism and taught themselves the practice for indirect benefit.
Or humans might have evolved a tendency to confuse themselves with their peers and practice reciprocal altruism under a delusion of self-benefit, but accidental indirect benefit.
Or humans might have evolved reciprocal altruism by random mutation without consciousness like the birds, then evolved consciousness in parallel only to spawn delusions that logic had something to do with it.
Or humans might have evolved an ability to conceptualize a utopian society and see reciprocal altruism as a means to that end, and make significant progress toward that despite the capitalist parasites.
Altruism makes the human species stronger and happier. Human progress has been slowed by Nietzsche, Ayn Rand, and all the other fools who believe that individuals should act only in thier own self interest. It takes a village.
pacplyer - I’m not sure all of that yeast in the beer wort perishes. Just before bottling when you add priming sugar the yeast will “come back to life” when additional nutrients are provided. Plus, by virtue of humanity’s fondness for beer we end up nurturing the yeast “collectively” so that it is still around when it is time to make the next batch. The yeast converts the carbohydrates to alcohol and we keep the specialized yeast around for the future. Symbiotic for both species.
rtdrury - I prefer your last possibility, but time will tell…
After I have just watched the movie ‘The Secret’ for the 20th time
I decided I take a break from negativity and focus on what I really
want. Peace and prosperity. Lots of great friends and a wonderful
family. Healthy food, time for the children and an environmentally
safe car with at least 100 MPG.
And Lots of other sustainable things…
rtdrury
Can I buy Your Book?
muggles5 January 10th, 2008 3:42 pm asked “Why do we only seem to hear from the ones who hate uncertainty, who loathe any trace of mystical searching or creative expression?” Sorry to be so clueless, but what do you mean by “only seem to hear from?” Hear where? Who?
There are many great and thoughtful scientists who are excellent writers and very much attuned to the mystery. A few who come immediately to mind, in addition to the oft mentioned Stephen Jay Gould, are Loren Eiseley, Thomas Lewis, and Jane Goodall.
And in terms of altruism at the human level, there are some very interesting data in Daniel Goleman’s book, Social Intelligence. He reports that certain emotions, commonly thought of as compassion and empathy, arise from chemically triggered, and rewarded, emotions and behaviors. He also describes the involvement of neural activity, “Here the brain achieves that efficiency by firing the same nuerons while both perceiving and performing an action…..When we see someone else in distress, similar circuits reverberate in our brain, a kind of hardwired empathic resonance that becomes the prelude to compassion.” He says it’s not a question of nature versus nurture, but the way in which our genes are expressed. And that recent studies have shown that parental nurturing is a vital component to gene expression.
“The pups born to devoted mothers, who licked and groomed the most, grew up to have denser connections between their brain cells, particularly in the hippocampus, the seat of memory and learning.” They also experienced less upsets and recovered faster than the other rats. Quite an interesting and exciting read.
it’s because of the mystery that I know there can’t be a god, not one that any known religion has articulated, anyway. And that makes me very happy. Sorry for the long-winded post. Now I am going to look up Kropotkin.
Good stuff. This is an intelectual Ali-Forman. What I would like to know is how do you explain alturism to NON-relatives like we see in humans? Ants and bees are easy- they are more related to their siblings (.75) than to offspring (.50)so it makes more sense to work for the colony and not reproduce, but why does a human behave alturistically when there is no immediate genetic advantage?
Animals often eat or kill their babies if they don´t find the right material surroundings right. Rabbits held in captivity that don´t have nesting material, rats, mice, even primates are known to kill their own babies for reasons which we often don´t understand. The sentimentality which we call “love” - especially “mother-love” is something we transfer to other animals, but I believe is a product of social luxury, something accompanying the rise of the middle class. Up until then was a baby a symbol of a dynasty or of more hands to help in the situation of extreme poverty, where (in Austria and Germany) children were “sold” in marketplaces as farm or maid (in the case of girls) workers. There was seldom room for great attachment or sentimentality with 12 kids.
As for Ayn Rand - she had some very challenging ideas but, unfortunately, very naive, and she was not yet witness of the progress since then made in the sciences, especially concerning human beings and this discussion. “Objectivism” has a lot of very good teachings about human nature, but based on a very false premise. That of “egoism” as being the ONLY standard of moral right in decisions human beings make. It is a real part of our survival system as it is of every species. But it´s not the ONLY “tool of survival” to put it in her own words!
How the particular behaviour evolved is interesting but we would not be in a position to be discussing why and how, it if it had not.. So whatever we label the neuorchemical mechanism, it clearly is behaviour that confers asurvival advantage and as such, as jessethumm alludes, should be encouraged to evolve.
Might be more productive and worthwhile for the human race, in the long run..
Treefrog,
Read Karl Popper, among others, if you’re genuinely interested. Bottom line, a scientific statement must be falsifiable — through experimental/empirical/etc. means. If you see a hypothesis which is impossible to test/question, then you aren’t seeing a scientific statement. You may instead be dealing with religious or political dogma which forbid (or bootstrap) free inquiry with something else.
Does science futher the role of alturism of the human species in the natural world? Not my any measurable standard I can see.
Life cherishes life.
Individuals and species, that don’t cherish life, don’t survive.
Look around you; everywhere you will see animals caring for and helping other animals. The species that did not do this are nowhere to be found.
Human beings struggle every day to find the motivation to live, to enhance their lives, to enhance the lives of others. Human beings who have lost all apparent indications of caring, nonetheless struggle to survive in a last ditch effort to recover their sense of direction, their inherent motivation to care for themselves and others, to cherish life.
It’s easy to view famous scientists as ‘having it made’; these two scientists do not; they struggle every day to explain caring in a way that will not impugn their choices draining their energy and will to survive; their will to survive, not for the sake of survival, as they suggest, but rather to restore their ability, their nature, to live cherishing life.
Take a minute today to give yourself credit for the hard work you do living the necessarily altruistic life of a human being.
Treefrog: Depends on how widely read you are. I’ll drop another book, ethologist Frans de Waal’s “Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal.
It’s possible to reject it forever, though. The most interesting thing I’ve voted about the Flat Earthers is the rejection of scientific theory, despite their embracing of the fruits of science: medicine, automobiles, computers, electricity, etc. Like eating a fruit and denying the tree it came from.
The Luddite Creationists, like the Amish, are at least consistent with their rejection of science.
The dumber the species the less aware and caring it is about other species around it and the environment in which it lives.
A point of caution (I don’t want to assume too much). Karl Popper’s method - hypo-deduction - is one of several scientific methods. Science is not reducible to Popper’s view and, in fact, Popper’s method artificially (and ideologically) reduces the fields of valid scientific activity. There are, moreover, logical problems with Popper’s claims, not least of which are that theory can only be indirectly tested (something we all learn in elementary school that doesn’t actually follow from Popper’s falsification thesis) and that counter-example disproves hypotheses (dialectically, counter-instances may occur because of intervening variables). Theories aren’t dreamed up and then rise on indirect evidence and fall on single counter-examples. Lakotas and Kuhn, among others, show that this vision of science is mythic; and Hempel shows that falsification is not less problematic than (logical) empiricism. There are retrodeductive methods, such as historical materialism (which Popper despised), that meet standards of criterion (i.e., predictive), content, and construct validity and explain relationships in the context of webs of relationships (see Bhaskar realist theory of science for a superior albeit less than satisfactory methods of inquiry). It must be remembered that Popper was an dedicated anticommunist and had an ideological motive for drawing up such a narrow criteria for defining science. I tend to side with Feyerabend who suggested that one should use the method that answers the question. This is consistent with the pragmatist and historical materialist methods of connecting thought and practice in truth production.
However, where falsification is particularly useful is in exposing claims that intrinsically rest upon no empirical evidence, such as a claim that a supernatural being created the universe. If there were evidence of supernatural beings then there would be reason to develop theories about such things. However, the way claims about the existence of supernatural beings are articulated, namely as a matter of faith (neither reason nor fact), makes propositions derived from such belief utterly non-falsifiable and therefore useless for rational inquiry.
“I said, ‘You are “gods”: you are all children of the Most High God.”-Psalm 82:6
It has been said that evolution is being held up by fundamentalism and the surge of fundamentalism throughout all faith paths sends shivers through cynical atheists and mystics alike. The bumper sticker actually did get it right: “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
According to the 1987 classic, “The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace” Dr. Scott Peck defines the spiritual life as fluid and that one may pass back and forth repeatedly through any of the four-probably more-stages of the soul.
Stage one upon this journey -that begins from within-is essentially our infancy in the spiritual life. Like a wild child, a person in this stage reflects the inner chaotic and anti-social, unregenerate soul that is interested only in its own self-satisfaction and ego, much like the stereotypical spoiled child. Stage one people may claim to love others, but their behavior reflects they love their own pleasure, money, power, prestige, and security above any other. For stage one people, it really is all about them.
The good news is that the vast majority of humanity responds to that inner tug which is God, for lack of a better word. Catherine of Sienna wrote that within us all is the divine diamond. But life and all our baggage dulls the flame of our divine brilliance. Stage two souls seek to “let their light shine” and will live virtuous lives and do many good works. They also can be judgmental of others, self-righteous, rigid of thought, cold of heart, legalistic concrete literal thinkers and may even be guilty of a lukewarm faith. They want to do right and they even may desire to love and please God, but have not yet fully opened up to the Inner Light, as Joan of Arc did when she challenged church and state and persisted that she had intuited God within -even while being fried.
Stage two souls have not yet been set fully free and prefer the security of a higher human authority than themselves for guidance. They submit to institutions, scripture, dogma, ritual, ministers, or gurus. This is the most appropriate stage for older children and most adults who live busy lives just trying to keep bread on the table and a dry roof above. The difference between a stage one and stage two soul, is that a one wouldn’t even notice a neighbor in need, while the two has awoken to the fact that we are to be our neighbor’s keepers and they will respond to a friend-and like the good Samaritan, even to a total stranger in need.
Most theologians would agree that the opposite of faith is not disbelief: the opposite of faith is fear. Stage three souls have not just fearlessly awoken, they have evolved! This evolution has led them to the realization of what Christ was really talking about in the Sermon of the Mount AKA:The Beatitudes.
A stage three soul may well reject Christ as God, but often agree with the philosophy of Jesus, which Thomas Jefferson laid out when he weeded out the miracle stories from the gospels and clarified the teachings and ethics of Christ in:
THE LIFE AND MORALS of JESUS of NAZARETH
1. Be just: justice comes from virtue which comes from the heart.
2. Treat people the way we want to be treated.
3. Always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with COMPASSION.
4. Consider valuable the things that have no material value.
5. Do not judge others.
6. Do not bear grudges.
7. Be modest and unpretentious.
8. Give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid.
9. Being true to one’s self in more important than being loyal to one’s family…those who think they know the most are the most ignorant…
A stage three soul will see that a neighbor is everyone on the planet and not just those who think and look the same. Stage three’s are seekers, doubters, skeptics, atheists, agnostics and frequently adults who grew up disenchanted with institutionalized religion.
Their inherent intellectual curiosity leads them to seek their own way towards the Mystery of the Divine through philosophy and the study of multiple faith paths choosing and discarding according to their “inner light.”
Stage three souls often become activists for social justice and reform and Tom Paine most likely was one, but maybe he was a four?
“Soon after I had published the pamphlet “Common Sense” [on Feb. 14, 1776] in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion… The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”-Tom Paine
It has been said we are all called to be mystics in the market place and a stage four, such as Thomas Merton and Rumi give voice to that experience of the curtain being lifted and seeing through the glass a bit less darkly.
A mystic can best be understood as one who is in love with the divine mystery and is viscerally connected to the unity of all creation.
Mystics are not navel gazers, they feel the pain of the world within their hearts and grieve at what humans do to the other when they have no clue that The Divine is within the other as much as within themselves.
Mystics have detached from their concepts of God-not by their own efforts, but by the invitation and action of God upon a willing and simple soul in love with Pure Being, AKA:God.
The mystic fool, Saint Francis, the leper kisser of Assisi, was so head over heels in love with God in everyone and all of creation that most people of his time considered him crazed, or at least, extremely eccentric.
One needn’t be a mystic or move beyond stage two on the spiritual journey to do what is good and right just because it is good and right.
On that foundation alone people of faith, atheists and agnostics can surely find something to agree upon.
“I said, ‘You are “gods”: you are all children of the Most High God.”-Psalm 82:6
Or would only a mystic see that?
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory”
Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu”
Sorry, I didn’t finish my thought. The argument about altruism is one that I remember having 40 years ago in high school, specifically: “Is there altruism in the affluent society?” Based on our 17- & 18-year-old experiences and observations, we concluded that no, there wasn’t. Now, was that so hard?
Years later in an anthropology class in college, we were discussing whether there was such a thing as a “pure gift,” that is, giving something to someone with absolutely no chance or desire for something in exchange–including the pleasure of giving. We debated the question for weeks, and even though we couldn’t come up with an example of a “pure gift,” we never stopped hoping to find one. Thirty some years later, my conclusion is, so what. It’s okay if the gift isn’t “pure” as long as we are still giving them.
And finally, at the risk of sounding sophomoric, I once saw a home movie taken by a couple who had on their property a stray/feral kitten who was being cared for (fed, kept warm and safe, and later, played with) by an adult crow. And this took place over a number of years. Now, THAT’S what I call altruism, and maybe as close as you can get to a “pure gift.”
Whether Dawkins, or, Wilson prevail, it pleases me to know that altruism has a genetic base which happily lays waste to Ayn Rand’s economic philosophy that altruism is mere neurosis.
Is that WAWA or woo-woo? God is concept that carries far too much baggage to have real utility in bringing people to mindfulness. The rise of fundamentalism is a direct testament to that. Instead of starting with what is primarily now a fraudulent notion designed by institutional religion to control people and extend institutional power, why not focus on the notions of mindfulness and its practice? God talk seriously pollutes and impedes people’s ability to reach an understanding of that mindful connection.
But back to evolution. One of the difficulties with reducing biological evolution to Dawkins’ notions of genes is that it does not take various other forms of systems (or pattern) evolution into direct account. Dawkins is far too much of a reductionist. Systems that capture and utilize energy most effectively for a given environment tend to persist, but that persistence evolves the environment making evolution a continual process that is context dependent. Systems also tend to increase in complexity as various interacting systems combine to act synergistically to utilize energy with ever greater efficacy (notice that this doesn’t necessarily mean the most efficient, just the most effective for a given context or environment, which is itself composed of systems).
For more check out Peter Corning’s work:
http://www.complexsystems.org/
Altruism is all around us (except perhaps in the biology classes at UC) and I’d like to comment about this remark:
“These kind of commensal relationships occur not infrequently in nature.”
I live near a large slough, part of the 10% of remaining wetlands in California. A regular occurrence is commensal [or commensual] feeding among cormorants, terns, and egrets. The cormorants form a semi-circle and drive small fish toward the shore.
While encircling the prey, the cormorants also feed. The terns dive into the circle. The egrets station themselves along the shore. Even with this concerted effort, many hundreds of fish escape. It is a wonder to see.
I believe after observing this event many times that the animals involved know each other from living near each other. They know there is benefit involved. They know that cooperation and sharing work better than any alternatives.
If we could present pictures of this type of behavior on the video screens of our world, we’d have a different perspective on how people could act and why people do things.
It appears that Wilson is willing to sacrifice his reputation to some degree to pursue a truth that could well benefit us all. Must be in his genes
VOXCLAMANTIS: Brilliant!
DERAN: Right on!
What always amazes me is the absence of any enlightened realization about the power, essence, and existence of LOVE in all things. When hard, cold, left brain logic rules our concept of the world, war results.
There have been recent stories in the news of a cat suckling puppies, a dog suckling piglets, and least surprising, Democrats suckling Republicans.