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Yes, if a gene's surrounded by copies of itself, then there might be certain scenarios where it will destroy a copy of itself to help other copies of the same g

Yes, if a gene's surrounded by copies of itself, then there might be certain scenarios where it will destroy a copy of itself to help other copies of the same gene. For example apoptosis happens all the time in human cells. If a cell believes it's infected by a virus or a cancerous mutation, it will voluntarily destroy itself. That's because its continued existence threatens its genetically identical cellular neighbors. Thus genetic inclusive fitness is maximized. But what absolutely wouldn't happen is such self-sacrifice on a species wide level. Two random members of a species are not closely enough related for self-sacrifice to maximize inclusive genetic fitness. Almost certainly a non-complying free rider mutation would arise in one or more individuals, and exploit the other species' members altruism. The hypothesis was that aging evolved as an adaptation to accelerate the evolution of the species. To see the absurdity of this hypothesis, consider that if this logic held, then mate guarding would definitely not exist. In fact just the opposite, males would routinely solicit the highest-quality males they could find to mate with their females. And be happy about it. After all this would also accelerate species wide evolution, at the expense of individual fitness.

derefr 7y ago
What I'm saying is that "genetically identical" doesn't matter; only the integral of all "contains the particular gene sequence from whose perspective you are analyzing selfishness" considerations matters. Which is to say, it's not the genome that's selfish, it's a population of genes that are all individually selfish, at the expense of other genes in the genome. Which means that, if there's a trade-off that involves killing the current host of the gene, in exchange for creating a new host (a descendant) that has the same gene, but is otherwise more inclusively-fit because it has better other genes—then any given gene will "want" to take that trade. Thus the evolution of reproductive strategies that require the deaths of one or both parents. Mate-guarding (and, really, sexual reproduction preference generally) can be understood as a desire of your more-fit genes, to kick out your less-fit genes and replace them (in your descendants) with more-fit immigrant genes, to build a more-inclusively-fit descendant where the gene has higher likelihood of continuing the next step of exponential-spread-to-fixation.

derefr 7y ago

What I'm saying is that "genetically identical" doesn't matter; only the integral of all "contains the particular gene sequence from whose perspective you are analyzing selfishness" considerations matters. Which is to say, it's not the genome that's selfish, it's a population of genes that are all individually selfish, at the expense of other genes in the genome. Which means that, if there's a trade-off that involves killing the current host of the gene, in exchange for creating a new host (a descendant) that has the same gene, but is otherwise more inclusively-fit because it has better other genes—then any given gene will "want" to take that trade. Thus the evolution of reproductive strategies that require the deaths of one or both parents. Mate-guarding (and, really, sexual reproduction preference generally) can be understood as a desire of your more-fit genes, to kick out your less-fit genes and replace them (in your descendants) with more-fit immigrant genes, to build a more-inclusively-fit descendant where the gene has higher likelihood of continuing the next step of exponential-spread-to-fixation.