Evolution of Altruism

If I may just single out your post, as it seems to reflect a lot of other similar responses, and say that I think there is just such pure poppycock on so many levels.First, do you actually believe there is a gene which controls altruism? And do you think that there are specific mutations that could happen to that gene which would suddenly make one more altruistic or less altruistic? Do you also think that there are people who may have gotten a mutation to their own altruism gene, and thus they could possibly not share this same inherited desire to be selfless? Maybe we need to rethink our justice system, and cut some slack to those who have a retarded altruism gene-since its really not their fault.Furthermore, do you think that at some time in the past, there were groups of these social primates, and in those groups NONE of the individuals had any sense of altruism, until one altruistic "eve" started this whole behavior off? With some simple protein shift, a baby was born that thought, I don't know why, but I am going to be the most selfless being on this planet. And the behavior was so successful for reproduction that it quickly spread through this original non-altruistic society? Or perhaps it was just a mutation to the selfish gene? A faulty copy of a baboons desire to steal his neighbor's food? They simply were incapable of being as mean as their friends. And that happened to be a stroke of luck, in the getting laid department.These types of stories that evolutionists love to tell, presumably without embarrassment for the sheer audacity of these far out presumptions, really do give me a chuckle. Every thing, every action, every behavior you can think of, is easy enough to explain by simply saying "can't you see the advantage this would have...nana?" . Well, first off, no I can't see any particular advantage, but even if I could, simply speculating about some contrived advantage doesn't translate into a grand elegance of nature magically being able to play that advantage into a neat little inherited package.Even if you believed every aspect of evolution, including the accidental brilliance of it that you are suggesting, these types of wild fairy tales of chimps or man existing without some behavior (for centuries presumably) and then suddenly getting a weird mutation, (that we can only imagine in our heads because we don't need evidence), then spreading like wildfire through the population as if this was the most important new feature of reproduction selection is far more ridiculous than any Noah's Ark tales that you would find so unconvincing.So if you don't mind, can you walk us through a few of the steps of how this first mutation started in your scenario?

Dr. A can't understand it.Noted. Thank you.

Oh come on modulus, you are making a natural selection argument for the genetic continuation of altruism. You need several components for that to occur; one a genetically controlled behavior which is inheritable, two a population in which the altruism exists in some individuals, and doesn't in others, and the altruistic one is being selected for, and three a starting point for this altruism.You are not make a very convincing plan about how this could all develop (well, truth is your are not making a plan at all, you are just puling this idea out of thin air-the only clue your are giving is that you believe it had to start in a germ line mutation of a non-social species-any candidates you wish to propose?) , so I don't see how you can consider what you are saying as any more scientific than any creation story that i didn't make that you are deriding. When you make a scientific argument, you should at least have some basic idea about how you are believing this to be true other than just saying evolution is smarter than you think. How does your side criticize creation with such weakly supported ideas of your own.

One big problem I have with these kinds of general propositions made by cosmic chimp and modulous and others, which is so common in every modern pop-science magazine and tv show, is that people who aren't really very educated or even particularly interested in the science of life hear all these things, and just figure oh it must be correct, I heard some smart people talking about it. It is one of the ways in which your side has duped the average person, intentionally or unintentionally.I would think as ones whose purport to love science so much, that your side would be fundamentally opposed to this type of rather inaccurate impressions being espoused to the public, but I see no such concerns from your side. There is no evidence at all that these types of behavior are genetically controlled, and it is even extremely more speculative to suggest that natural selection has played any role whatsoever in developing these types of human characteristics. And yet this absolute lack of any real evidence doesn't stop the multitudes of stories and so called science articles, and forum debates from forming. Your side seems to be content to say-"well, why couldn't it have happened", or 'well, our fairy tales are more believable than your fairy tales (as modulous has just suggested)."This is what people who say they believe in science advocate? Wild speculations that if said in a scientific tone could be convincing to the uniformed? It sounds much more like a game of trying to win converts than it does any kind of critical scientific thought. And that is one of the biggest problems I have with how the whole evolutionary debate is carried out in our society. It is so little science, and so much bunk, and very very few of the believers on your side even care that what gets portrayed is in no way accurate or solidly supported evidentially. Your side seems to care so much more about just appearing right, to win more public support for your side.I find such a mindset to be so unintellectual, and just so un-admirable-if all you are trying to do is win people's opinions with junk.A germ line mutation in a non-social species, sometime before there were insects. That is the type of scientific theories we are getting here. What a lot of crap.

Let me just be clear, in case there was some confusion. When I was referencing remarks that modulous made about his ideas of how altruism was formed, I was NOT referencing remarks about granny magdas opinions about how altruism may have evolved.However, I will make note of the fact that in granny magdas version of how altruism arises, I guess we can conclude that it is a common mutation that has arisen independently a number of times. What this mutation is, when it has occurred, and how it was selected for is of course not known or expressed in granny Magdas version of events.This is not at all an unusual explanation from you I realize, as it is a well known goal of yours to just throw out as much speculation as possible, in defense of your strong need to expound upon the greatness of atheistic thought, and claim that this is science because its not creationism.So anyway, I get the gist of YOUR theory of how altruism has arisen-that is that it is ubiquitous and probably evolved multiple times. As for modulous, he is probably capable of explaining his own believes about his own theory, but if you don't feel he is maybe you can ask him.

I agree wholeheartedly. Almost nothing one can say about human tendency can logically be explained genetically simply by our tribal nature, or our hunter-gathering history (but this sure doesn't stop every Nature and Science magazine from directly attributing our personalities to this). Whatever affect that brief time in history could have on us, should not have much more influence than all the other times in our history when we lived another way. I suspect we weren't hunter gatherers for much longer than we were waring pillagers, or wine drinking sports fans.

An alternative to what? To fanciful speculation? I haven't seen anything other than that presented here so far. I don't know, other fanciful speculation?

Don't you first need to show that altruism did in fact evolve, before you can begin to speculate wildly on how?

I think I was being precise enough, in that I was asking if you actually DO believe that altruism evolved as a genetic mutation to an exiting gene then what is a rough picture of how you see this happening.If you are now saying that you don't necessarily have an opinion about whether or not it arose in the simple Darwinian fashion that others are suggesting, but were simply pointing out that kin selection works mathematically if we are only looking at it that way, but not necessarily logically, fair enough.

Yes, and so those stories also need to attempt to make some make clear account scientifically for how it all could have started, from the beginning when no altruism existed in some organisms. Without that none of it can possibly make sense.I am not opposed to the speculation, as long as it has some scientific merit to it. I am opposed to just glossing over the hard to reconcile problems of finding a heritable cause of altruism, and showing how that could arise through some kind of unguided mutation. If you start off just assuming this, and forget about how that could be, the whole discussion of "evolution of altruism" is weak.Go ahead, speculate. Speculate how Darwinian evolution begins such a trait. That is exactly what I asked modulous to do, but he declined.

I hope that your intention in writing on a scientific forum is to do more than word play. I don't think there is anything clear at all about what you want to say-that seems to be your intention. Do you feel Darwinian evolution accounts for altruism or doesn't it? If you feel it does, can you explain in any clear fashion how you see that happening.All you seem willing to do is just obfuscate the question with semantic silliness. Hello Kitty is also cute to some people I suppose, but equally void of meaning.

I understood your point. If we are going to assume that altruism is a result of Darwinian evolution, there is no reason to assume it only began in the human lineage. Hunter-gathering is just one of the phases of man's lifestyle. The fact that it was probably the first phase doesn't really mean it would be more important evolutionarily than the 2nd phase or third phase, etc. But every time someone comes up with a human personality trait that they want to explain through evolution-you can guarantee the first thing they will say is..."well, but when we were hunter gatherers, it would have been an advantage to have the middle finger be slightly longer than the ring finger, because the middle finger was used for dislodging seeds from the Savannah grasslands..." Hunter-gathering is the magic explanation for everything.So back to your point, if some are going to try to postulate altruism as going back all the way to fish or what have you, I think this requires a few loose ends of logic to be tied up as to how this could happen. I don't put a lot of stock in things like the Granny Magda models of well, it just arose independently a number of times in history and I guess stuck around because it was selected for. Not ubiquitous, and also not so rare.Sounds like just more evolution talking points to me. Extremely unsubstantiated tales that all evolutionists just love to hang their hats on.

Well, speaking of evolutionist talking points!I think that if my explanation were magic, it would be just as logical as the explanations put forth here.And I certainly think that there is nothing even remotely scientific about a line of reasoning that constantly uses the defense of "Well, since you don't have a better explanation..."