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Almost like biological determined scoutships for a group, arent they? Imagine a bunch of hunte/gatherers, who just entered a new continent (like north-america)

Almost like biological determined scoutships for a group, arent they? Imagine a bunch of hunte/gatherers, who just entered a new continent (like north-america)- having those loonies orbiting the group, reporting new ressources, scouting ahead- sounds well adapted.

chubot 7y ago
Yeah I agree with this. I thought I read that scientists claim there's no such thing as "group selection" in evolution, i.e. where one individual in a group will do something bad for himself but good for the group (reproductively speaking). Yeah it looks like wikipedia has a page on this controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection Richard Dawkins apparently doesn't believe in it, and neither does Steven Pinker. But just based on casual observation I think group selection is real (yes I know that's not scientific). Humans are like ants in many ways... some of us are "programmed" to perform specific roles.
- koverstreet 7y ago
  If group selection wasn't a thing, multicellular organisms wouldn't exist.
- jadyoyster 7y ago
  Don't ants in a colony all share the same genes and have the queen do all reproducing? (From the sperm of a single male possibly? I'm not super familiar.)
  - chubot 7y ago
    Yeah I'm not sure. I think ants are an extreme case, but I do think groups of humans have similar sorts of "mechanisms". The book Sapiens repeats this over and over and I tend to agree. Religion, government, corporations, etc. are ways in which we cooperate with thousands or millions of others. We don't have to have the exact same genome, and it's not perfect cooperation, but there's something there.
sevensor 7y ago
In the case of dromomania's "patient zero", his wanderlust appears to have resulted from traumatic brain injury. I don't think this squares with your theory.

chubot 7y ago

Yeah I agree with this. I thought I read that scientists claim there's no such thing as "group selection" in evolution, i.e. where one individual in a group will do something bad for himself but good for the group (reproductively speaking). Yeah it looks like wikipedia has a page on this controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection Richard Dawkins apparently doesn't believe in it, and neither does Steven Pinker. But just based on casual observation I think group selection is real (yes I know that's not scientific). Humans are like ants in many ways... some of us are "programmed" to perform specific roles.

koverstreet 7y ago
If group selection wasn't a thing, multicellular organisms wouldn't exist.
jadyoyster 7y ago
Don't ants in a colony all share the same genes and have the queen do all reproducing? (From the sperm of a single male possibly? I'm not super familiar.)
- chubot 7y ago
  Yeah I'm not sure. I think ants are an extreme case, but I do think groups of humans have similar sorts of "mechanisms". The book Sapiens repeats this over and over and I tend to agree. Religion, government, corporations, etc. are ways in which we cooperate with thousands or millions of others. We don't have to have the exact same genome, and it's not perfect cooperation, but there's something there.

sevensor 7y ago

In the case of dromomania's "patient zero", his wanderlust appears to have resulted from traumatic brain injury. I don't think this squares with your theory.