4 ms·

Kin selection. The elderly can help their grandchildren survive, so genetic predispositions towards living longer and helping your grandchildren can propagate

• usrusr 7y ago
  Likely a very new concept on an evolutionary timescale, and competing against the survival chance cost of more mouths to feed during an acute resource shortage. It seems absolutely not a coincidence that the much faster, by orders of magnitude, process of human history got set in motion at a time when grandpatenting, as an evolutionary concept, wasn't quite finished yet.
  • astazangasta 7y ago
    Absolutely not a new concept, kin selection is why parents care for offspring.
    • gowld 7y ago
      Parents caring for offspring (vs spray and pray of hundreds of eggs) is very new on evolutionary timescales.
      • astazangasta 7y ago
        If by "very new" you mean 250M years, then maybe.