This seems like the individual-selection vs group-selection debate. Some genetic behavior, such as altruism to give a crude example, hurt the individual but hel

This seems like the individual-selection vs group-selection debate. Some genetic behavior, such as altruism to give a crude example, hurt the individual but help the group as a whole. By your argument, all such genes will be weeded out, and the only genes remaining will be those that strictly help the individual. However, the entire field of group-selection is predicated on the idea that such altruistic genes can indeed flourish, through the process of group-selection. Admittedly this is a contentious topic and there are many people who dispute that natural selection can ever occur at the group level. However, if you do buy the premise behind group-selection, a similar argument can be made for the success of genes that improve evolution. It's also worth considering that the "marketplace of nature" isn't as cut-throat as you're presenting it to be. There's enough inefficiencies in the ecosystem, to allow for imperfect organisms to survive. Imperfect organisms that have sufficient "slack" to "invest/divert" into genes that don't produce an immediate payout, but do snowball in the long-term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection