[lit-ideas] Re: The Descent of Man and self-sacrifice
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 23 May 2014 23:25:03 +0100 (BST)
It has been remarked, more than once by experts, that Darwinism is a theory
that most people think they understand but most people do not.
>As to the argument that “we need to reject the idea that behaviour that
>removes an organism from
the gene-pool will be 'selected for' because it benefits the remaining
group - this simply does not work as a theory, because nothing can be
'selected for' via its removal from the gene-pool.” That can’t be true.>
Sorry, not only can it be true but, if Darwinism is correct, it must be true.
Take the behaviour of an animal that defends its offspring at risk to itself:
this is explained in Darwinian terms not by "group selection" but "kin
selection". The behaviour survives not because the animal that defends its
offspring dies doing so [that would be ridiculous, "because nothing can be
'selected for' via its removal from the gene-pool"] but because the offspring
thereby protected carry the same "genes": so the same "genes" are protected
even if the parent-animal dies protecting them, and the same "genes" will
encode the same disposition to defend offspring.
This is the inescapable logic of Darwinism: "kin selection" is allowed because
the same "genes" are built into the idea of "kin"; but mere "group selection",
where a group does not presupposes genetic kinship, is not allowed. So a mere
tendency to defend genetically unrelated creatures in a way that increased the
risk of death simply could not be 'selected for': the most that could evolve
would be a tendency to defend genetically unrelated creatures [like the cat
that recently intervened in a way that protected a boy from a dog attack] that
was a by-product of an adaptive tendency to defend genetically related
creatures.
We must also factor in the likelihood of successful defence. That a parent
always dies, when defending their offspring against certain kinds of attack,
may make that disposition non-adaptive when a better strategy would be not to
defend and simply reproduce more offspring [this, as with most arguments here,
can be modelled mathematically, and then applied as model to be tested by
observation of nature]. That a parent occasionally dies when defending their
offspring will not undermine the adaptiveness of that disposition when this
generally ensures more "same-gene" survival than would not defending [but
reproducing more offspring]: so we might expect a parent where offspring are
few and far between [e.g. humans] will likely evolve much greater dispositions
to defend their offspring than a parent where more offspring are easily
generated [e.g. a mouse].
The cat that defended the boy was not defending him against a tiger but against
a dog - and had the measure of the dog: its defence of the boy will be a
by-product of an adaptive strategy to defend itself and its offspring from
predators no more generally lethal than the dog [i.e. "self-defence" and "kin
selection"] and will not be a product of the cat belonging to the genetically
unrelated "group" of the boy's family ["group selection"]:- what can happen is
that a by-product of "kin selection" operates in a way that might appear like
"group selection", but if Darwinism is correct "group selection" is not the
explanation but "kin selection" is. [It is also possible that the cat's defence
is not triggered so much by the threat to the boy but by the dog's invasion of
the cat's territory (a trigger explained in terms of "self defence" and "kin
selection", not "group selection").] Darwinian theory obviously forbids that an
animal that would never defend its
own offspring or territory would nevertheless defend another species'
offspring or territory: for example, that a frog, that would not leap to defend
its own offspring or territory in related circumstances, would ever leap to
defend a boy against a dog.
When Darwinism is properly understood, denying that "nothing can be
'selected for' via its removal from the gene-pool" is not merely false but
utterly absurd - being removed from the gene-pool cannot ever be of any
adaptive advantage. The adaptive advantage of defending offspring never lies in
dying in this cause but because such defence may ensure more "same gene"
survival than no such defence i.e. because, and only because, it protects
against removal from the gene-pool of the "same genes".
Dnl
Ldn
On Friday, 23 May 2014, 21:21, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Suicidal behaviors might be selected, consistently with the Darwinian view of
evolution, if the members of the species who committed suicide had previously
been able to procreate and pass their genes into the pool. Otherwise not.
Darwin's Descent of Man also involves sexual selection, and if the men prepared
to engage in suicidal behaviors had been chosen by women for mating over
others, and impregnated at least one or more women, then they would be able to
pass on their genes. This is a logical possibility, but I think that there is
scant historical evidence that this has been the way it usually worked. Rather,
historical evidence suggests that it has usually been the successful survivors
of wars who were able to pass their genes on. (Particularly if they came back
with their hands full of plunder.) Moreover, most of us are not inclined to
suicidal behaviors, so that it doesn't seem likely that our genes were selected
on that basis.
O.K.
On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 10:01 PM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>The argument Wade presented in the previous notewas from Darwin’sDescent of
>Manand not from hisOrigin of Species.
>As to the argument that “we need to reject the idea that behaviour that
>removes an organism from the gene-pool will be 'selected for' because it
>benefits the remaining group - this simply does not work as a theory, because
>nothing can be 'selected for' via its removal from the gene-pool.” That can’t
>be true. I’ve read several authors refer to organisms doing that very thing.
>One early author, can’t recall his name, referred to a pair of adult baboon
>males guarding their tribes passage up through a narrow passage where they
>would be safe for the night. The leopard came and they set upon it with
>precession. The leopard killed both of them, but before he did, one of them
>bit into the leopard’s jugular.
>I have read a number of similar accounts. The theory advanced to account for
>this well-documented sort of thing is that while these baboons, for example
>(and who knows, maybe their genes were passed into the tribes gene pool before
>this event) were killed. The tribe, including the near relatives of these
>baboons, lived on. They didn’t protect their own genes, but they their genes,
>lessany individual mutations would have lived on in the tribe.
> Wade goes on to write that Darwin’s ideas were “developed by Edward O. Wilson
>in his landmark 1975 bookSociobiologyand extended from animals topeople.‘The
>requirement for an evolutionary approach to ethics is self-evident,’he
>wrote.Sociobiology, though intended by its author as merely a synthesis of new
>biological ideas, posed a political challenge to Marxists and much of the
>academic left. It showed how the human mind was not a blank slate, on which
>governments could write whatever ideological prescriptions they wished in
>order to shape Socialist Man, but was already shaped or predisposed by
>evolution to behave incertain ways. Wilson’s book was assailed by Marxist
>colleagues at Harvard, such as the geneticist Richard Lewontin. Students
>disrupted Wilson’s lectures and harassed even Hamilton and Trivers.
>Researchers dared not use the word sociobiology, even if they agreed with its
>ideas, lest they be caught up in the furor. Sociobiology, as
applied to people, is now pursued mostly under the name of evolutionary
psychology. Richard Alexander, after the storm over Sociobiology hadsettled,was
one of the first biologists to resume the study of morality. Human ancestors
lived in groups, he argued in a book published in 1987, as a defense against
other human groups, and warfare had been a major influence in human evolution.
Usually predators find it most efficient to live in small groups (wolves,lions,
killer whales) while it is prey animals that congregate in large herds for
defense. But humans departed from this rule, probably because theirmost feared
enemies were other human groups. Incessant warfare led to selection for greater
social complexity and intelligence, and the larger societies required ever
greater self-constraint to avoid infringing on other individuals’ interests,
Alexander argued. “The function or raison d’ être of moral systems is evidently
to provide the unity required
to enable the group to compete successfully with other human groups. Only in
humans is the major hostile force of life composed of other groups in the same
species,” he wrote.
>“The surprising idea that people might be inherently moral was difficult for
>biologists and others to accept because it conflicted with the usual
>assumption that human nature is selfish. Even harder to swallow, for those not
>steeped in the concepts of evolutionary biology, was the assertion that
>something as precious as morality could have blossomed from the murky soil of
>strife and warfare.” [Wade, Nicholas (2009-10-27). The Faith Instinct: How
>Religion Evolved and Why It Endures (Kindle Locations 558-577). Penguin Group
>US. Kindle Edition.]
>Wade’s purpose isn’tprimarilyto show that an individual’s moral instinct is
>sufficient to put the good of the pack above his own. Too many examples of
>this exist for this to be questioned (at least by too many). It is to
>demonstrate that we (and not just we but primates as well) inherited a moral
>instinct. “In distress, they elicit sympathy with a range of very human
>expressions. “When upset, chimpanzees pout, whimper, yell, beg with
>outstretched hand, or impatiently shake both hands so that the other will
>hurry and provide the calming contact so urgently needed,” de Waal wrote.
>Chimps have been known to try to save others from drowning in the moats that
>sometimes surround zoo colonies. This is a huge risk for them because they
>cannot swim.” [Wade, Kindle Locations 593-597]
>“So what then is morality? De Waal’sdefinition,from his perspective as a
>primatologist, is very different from that of rationalist philosophers. “We
>understand morality as a sense of right and wrong that is born out of
>group-wide systems of conflict management based on shared values,” he writes.
>“Moral systems thus provide a set of rules and incentives to resolve
>competition and conflicts within the group in the service of the ‘greater
>good,’ that is, benefits (to individuals) derived from resource distribution
>and collective action. Morality, by this definition, is closely related to
>social behavior.” By breaking out of the specialist frameworks in which
>philosophers and psychologists had long imprisoned the study of morality, De
>Waal established that morality is a biological behaviorand that evolution is
>the only framework in which the origins of morality can be addressed.[Wade,
>Kindle Locations 607-614]
>Lawrence
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