I have only just begun rereading the Selfish Gene again so I may eat my words as I read further but from watching quite a few of his videos it does certainly seem like he tries to support this superficial theory of altruism which runs in the face of his selfish gene body of evidence.
Some guy in one of the videos who he was interviewing (great referencing huh ) even said that the altruism hypothesis seems like a âveneer of altruismâ. Dawkins is always trying to support how humans are more altruistic than the animals/natural selection and it seems like heâs desperately trying to justify this hypothesis more for his personal wish fulfillment than it actually being a compelling indicator in the evidence.
Overwhelmingly nature seems to be selfish and brutal and humans donât seem far off this path in their general behaviour up to this point. In more recent times Iâd agree we have a modicum of politeness towards one another in the forming of society etc. however just scratch beneath the surface and you see the old brutish competition of natural selection at work as always.
Itâs almost as if this altruism trip is just a fascade to make us feel a little better; denial even.
I admit we should be striving to make life fairer and less brutal etc. etc. but I wouldnât go so far as to say we are inherently evolved to do so as Dawkins tries to. He seems to be trying to force evidence which is tenuous at best to try and counter the âred in tooth and clawâ hypothesis which he initially discovered in his studies of Darwin.
So like I say, sure, aspire to improve things but donât try and lever in evidence which does not exist just to try and appease your own self serving wants to reconcile previous discoveries which you may have found unsettling.
Dawkins doesnât mean to suggest humans are ultra altruistic compared with other animals. What he means is that altruism has evolved because of selfish genes, that for many species altruism is beneficial to evolve.
genes for altruism between kin may evolve readily as demonstrated by hamiltonâs rule: rB>C
and Reciprocal altruism as described by Robert Trivers shows how altruism may evolve between nonrelated individuals.
For one humans are very altruistic, the differences between humans is how far we extend those circles, family, tribe, skin color, species.
Dawkins was fighting against backlash to his title âthe selfish geneâ which people misunderstood, so he went to great deal to explain the selfish gene as an analogy and that selfish genes may create altruistic organisms.
Like altruism to your children readily evolves, or between unrelated individuals if its in a tit for tat system.
âThe selfish geneâ just means whatever gene propagates the best will end up in more organisms by definition. Whether the gene is beneficial or not is irrelevant next to its ability to spread. An example is one gene envolved in childhood diabetes, it propagates itself by lowering the misscarriage rate, or the genes that cause polycystic ovaries are more heritable than normal without benefit.
Dawkins point was genes thrive for the sake of genes not individuals or species. âThe selfish geneâ is an analogy which means: âthe gene is the unit of selection, not species or organisms.â
Because the analogy used âselfishâ Dawkins strived to show selfish genes may evolve altruism to fight criticisms based on the title not biology behind his book.
Just look at hunter gatherers or tribes, even the most brutish acts of genocide vs other tribes required mass altruism and cooperation towards YOUR TRIBE/FAMILY.
The worst forms of violence and slaughter arise from ingroup altruism/cooperation, by definition that makes most groups aggressive to outsiders.
When Yanomami butcher another village thats an act of altruism/cooperation among the destroyers to end common enemies.
The worst types of brutish competition comes from ingroup cooperation.
Yup, I understand that better now but I have some more queriesâŚ
I still donât understand natural selection properly yet why and seemingly hindering traits exists in humans. I am getting there and I am very eager to learn it well cos I know it will (and already is) have profound implications on how I view the world.
For instance why do some people act seemingly âstupidâ- why do they do stuff which obviously seems self destructive to any rational person. Is this just stupidity meaning they lack the ability to see their acts as stupid? I think alot of âweakâ strains are allowed to exist in society now as it isnât so much survival of the fittest, but then again if it exists it must have been naturally selected right? However because human society has allowed us to transcend survival of the fittest somewhat it is not longer just about being fit so much cos the world is alot more lenient than it used to be. Some people are what most would consider total losers- trailer trash, rednecks, the general lumpen proletariat (of course that is only a subjective view) but my point is I find it hard to distinguish the survival qualities of some peopleâs actions.
For instance what is the evolutionary benefit of gay people, surely that is genetic suicide? Are they just a mutant strain which has not become extinct through natural selection yet?
Also I have been confused with why some of the emotions exist. Why do things like regret or general anguish exist? Is it not better to not feel any emotion and just learn from your mistakes without an emotion attached to it âbogging you downâ? Why do some people go insane? Why do we constantly think of things which may lead us into a spiral of unproductive thought- stuff like that. Most negative feelings seem âunproductiveâ. For instance when I think about something rationally and allow myself to distance myself from my emotions I can then come to a better course of action without the emotion interfering- so is the just the outdated emotion firing off by default? I suppose my general assertion is that emotions seems antiquated although by definition to emote means to move so without ANY emotions then we prob wouldnât do anything but they definitely seem flawed so I want that explained via evolution.
I also have noted that Dawkins has said evolution is still a work in progress- for instance with our inherent scitoma/blind spot in the eye. What says whether an emotion is ânot properly evolvedâ or whether it has some evolutionary benefit that isnât immediately apparent? Iâve heard the terms that we are âoutdated machinesâ in that our emotions et al are fine tuned for the old small tribal societies 5000 years ago but due to the massive boom in population and city living we have yet to catch up with these environmental changes.
All this evolution stuff has certainly kicked up a storm in my mind that is for sure Smile.
There are clearly big gaps between people and their abilities in the world yet they all still âexistâ. Most people to me seem âstupidâ and blind followers of their emotions. They seem to act impulsively and often walk into destructive self defeating situations simply due to being irrational and not being able to see outside the box of their emotions. Are they just stupid?
Also, Western society seems to applaud stupidity and idolizing superficial ideals- ie celebrities as the new religion, rather than science and rationality, whatâs up with that? There seem to be the few alphas (corporations) at the top who still live by the survival of the fittest ethos and the sheep (majority of society) who they feed off of. The sheep are encouraged not to think cos the alphas at the tops feed of them, similar to the human farms in The Matrix and so via natural selection stupidity will be selected.
âSeeminglyâ is the critical word here. Given human generation times, the invention of agriculture is analogous to a couple of days in your life. Have you ever started a new job whose skill set is essentially unrelated to the one you employed previously? The simple skills really only take a couple of weeks to get down. The intermediate ones take a few months. Some really advanced ones can take years! But it isnât just about competency, it is about mastery. And even for the simple skills you can learn in a day, it still takes a long time (on the order of months to years) to really master.
So with no training, you are thrown into a job for which you are utterly unqualified. You donât have a teacher either â well, besides the cold hard experience of failure. But even that might not get noticed, so who knows? You work that job, ineptly, in a confused fashion, for three-or-so days and then the rules change again. Utterly and completely. Youâve gone from being the best damned ice-cream scooper this side of the Mississippi, to a secretary organizing your bossâs life (no easy task), to using a laser to etch microprocessors under a sterile environment. From hunter-gatherers, to agriculture, to the industrial revolution. It has been a wild ride.
Why are people so seemingly inept? Pha! Weâre lucky that we are a remarkably adaptable animal and are as competent as we are!
I kinda addressed this above, but you also need to keep in mind that the notion of âSurvival of the Fittestâ comes from Spencer. Without serious qualifications, when you say, âsurvival of the fittestâ you arenât talking about evolution or natural selection: you are talking about social Darwinism. That is a theory that has been pretty much entirely discredited, so it is best to sit down and work on unlearning it.
That is a subject that is up for debate. While homosexuality is believed to be primarily genetic in nature, complex behavioral traits tend to be polygenic, so many genes act in concert to cause the particular behavioral phenotype. This hypothesis is further supported by the sexual continuum. Since humans have two versions of every gene (unless they are male and the gene is on either of the sex chromosomes), sometimes having two different versions is better than having two identical copies of one. Sickle cell anemia is the classical example of this. Two sickle cell copies of the gene results in sickle cell, that is bad. But, two non-sickle cell copies of the gene leaves on very vulnerable to malaria. In conditions where malaria is common, the sickle cell version of the gene is highly selective because those with both copies live much more comfortably.
In cases of ignorance such as this, it is often prudent to examine the animal world for clues. In canines, homosexual behavior is used as a signifier of dominance. Social hierarchy is certainly important for selection in social species, like humans. In Penguins, homosexuality serves as a back-up. A non-breeding relative can take over the parental duties of a deceased member of the family (que kin altruism and prairie dogs!). Bonobos exhibit both those behaviors as well as using sexual favors as a kind of currency, be it homo or heterosexual in nature. Given our close relation to the Bonobo, it seems reasonable to suggest that all those reasons may well contribute to homosexual behavior in humans.
Homo sapiens does not equal Homo economicus. Iâm a big fan of the Enlightenment, donât get me wrong, but it does not provide a good description of humanity.
A fascinating and wild variety of reasons!
And all that actually makes a certain degree of sense given that modern society is pretty damned alien from what we actually evolved to deal with! The tension between our instincts and emotions â still essentially in the hunter-gatherer phase, and the modern industrial society in which we live is quite a powerful source of confusion!
Evolution is always a work in progress. That is what is so exciting!
A common enough sentiment . . .
I donât know about Western society. How about just society?
We have a few mental vunerabilities because of evolution as well. Schizophrenia may be influenced by genes under selection recently in human evolution associated with intelligence. It might be a species vunerability or maybe people who get schizophrenia have genes associated with increased intelligence. (along with family).
If you are homozygous for APOE4 you have this huge chance to become effected by a Alzheimerâs disease but being heterozygote may be beneficial.
Like Xun mentioned homozygote diseases like sickle cell anemia thrive when they provide heterozygote advantage. In sickle cell having 1 copy gives you resistance vs malaria, having 2 was a death sentence until recently.
Anxiety disorders are easy to understand as well, think of anxiety being a fight or flight knob, some people get cranked too high. On the flip side, some people wonât feel anxiety when they should.
Psychiatry has put forward a massive effort to treat anxiety but seem uninterested treating under anxious people.
) even said that the altruism hypothesis seems like a âveneer of altruismâ. Dawkins is always trying to support how humans are more altruistic than the animals/natural selection and it seems like heâs desperately trying to justify this hypothesis more for his personal wish fulfillment than it actually being a compelling indicator in the evidence.
