Kin Selection & Altruism

If pressed, I'd tend to agree (after directing you to my escape clause: "...almost a philosophical question..."), but it seems to depend somewhat on how the terms are being applied. As I mentioned above, it's important in a discussion about "altruistic behavior" to recognize what it is that is doing the 'behaving'. This is somewhat problematic, because our ideas about 'behavior' intuitively default to our first-hand knowledge about the macro-structures we refer to as "individual organisms" interacting with their environments. Frogs hop, bees sting, donkeys bray, playful children roll down grassy hills.If we examine such behaviors in the context of their consequences for whole organisms, the math is going to work out differently than if we view them as composites of micro-behaviors at lower levels of structure (individual cells, or individual genes), and I think we risk importing some dubious conceptual baggage if we assume that 'behavior' can be regarded as equally meaningful at all levels -- when child rolls down a hill, there's a lot more going on than when a rock rolls down the same hill, even though the latter might be described as "behavior" on the part of the rock. When we speak about the "behavior" of a genome then, (or of a cell, or of a gene) we should remember that these are like rocks rolling down hills (it's especially important to remember that, because no matter where the discussion goes, it's going to be conducted in a language that is absolutely filthy with teleological assumptions).With this caveat in mind, we could say that biological entities like cells or organelles have interests, and that mitochondria, and plasmids, have some interests in common with the cells that contain them, some interests which are independent of those of the cells, and perhaps some that are in conflict with them. To the extent that genomes behave, they do so by proxy; their behavior consists of influencing the behavior of the cell (and idea which can also be extended another level down, to that of the individual gene).

Yes. But since a whole organism is the result of a unique composite of genes, it means that genes can have relative fitness independent of the whole organism; selection propagates downward to the level of the gene. In fact, whole organisms are transitory; only genes have an ongoing, autonomous existence. Am I altruistic for harboring the cold virus currently struggling for control over my cellular mechanisms?

And if they are (as many do) remaining pretty much the same over long periods of time, and finding their way into diverse organisms? Yes, I can see that. I respectfully suggest that you work on it. Dood, it's a metaphor. It is often said that "water seeks its own level", and "nature abhors a vacuum" -- both of which similarly 'imply intent' -- yet I would be surprised if you deemed either false on that basis; I expect you would understand that these are not intended to be interpreted literally.Again, the problem you seem to be having is that you are attempting to apply an intuitive understanding of the way things work -- one gained by experience and observation at the level of whole organisms -- to entities at levels below that. If the presence of a gene within an organism (or a plasmid within a bacterial cell) produces results that tend to lead to the creation of more copies of the gene, more copies of the gene will tend to be created; the gene doesn't have to want to get replicated any more than a rock has to want to roll downhill.This message has been edited by Cal, 12-10-2005 07:53 PM

I agree. But if a gambler makes the best play possible in a given situation, he may be said to be acting in his best interests -- and this is still true even if he loses. After all, gamblers don't have to win every time. The billions of dollars gambling casinos rake in every year are based on a very slight edge the house has over the player in the typical game (often less than 2%), and depend heavily on the fact that the significance of this edge is not intuitively obvious to the average player. It's easy to underestimate the steady, grinding power of a subtle, sustained statistical bias, and something that came as a revelation for me was when I first realized that reproductive success can be measured in very small increments. I tend to use the phrase "tend to" a lot; in biology, it often seems more accurate to speak of what "tends to" happen, rather than of what "happens".Besides that, until all the 'choices' have been clearly expressed, and their consequences plotted on a payoff matrix, it may not be obvious which 'strategy' offers the best advantage in the long run.

Well, remember, a casino is a battleground...

I'd be very cautious about attempting to apply it at the species level at all. At the individual level, a losing organism might be one with only 1000 grandchildren, where the average was 1001. Evolution as a computer. I like that.
While things in the real world are often too complicated to get a firm mathematical handle on, I believe that if we could do that, we would find that 'behaviors' are always the results of 'strategies', either directly or indirectly, and that while not all strategies represent optimal cells on the (current, local) payoff matrix, they always tend to move toward them. In other words, if we ever saw a strategy that appeared to involve genuine altruism, we could be sure that it was a temporary situation.

Interestingly enough, I've just now been reading "A Beautiful Mind", about the life of John Nash. Seen the movie. No, I don't think so. Yes, I think it is. I agree. Or: what appear to be spontaneous acts of altruism.

I have a book he co-authored with Oskar Morgenstern, "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior". Not exactly light reading. One must be ever so careful in choosing one's terms these days.