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Can you back up that claim? It sounds like an argument based on group selection theory. Animals may have a desire to help out those that are genetically related

by 3minus1 14y ago

Can you back up that claim? It sounds like an argument based on group selection theory. Animals may have a desire to help out those that are genetically related to them. But to say they want to save any and all members of their own kind violates the thesis of Darwin's Selfish Gene.

gph 14y ago
>Darwin's Selfish Gene I think you mean Dawkins. Easy to mix those two names up :)
- 3minus1 14y ago
  Oh man, you're right. Reminds me of when I wrote an essay about something by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I kept calling him Martinez.
hackinthebochs 14y ago
I wouldn't say it violates the premise of The Selfish Gene. The question is, can the animal easily distinguish between members of its somewhat close kin and one it isn't closely related to? Without this ability, any animal that looks similar enough would be subject to behavior attributed to kin-altruism. For a lot of animals in the wild I would wager that they lack the ability to discriminate between close and distant kin.
dmitriy_ko 14y ago
You are right, the altruistic behavior is not indiscriminately directed to any member of the same specie. In fact, some within the grate ape family had developed a behavior to purposefully attack members of of the same "kind" in order to gain more resources for themselves. Chimpanzees and humans are two examples who exhibit this behavior (but not gorillas I believe). However, desire to help members of close kin is pretty universal. Either way, this distinction is irrelevant. What I was trying to say was simply that you shouldn't assume that human emotions and motivations are very special. We won the genetic lottery by getting a lucky combination of traits which allowed us build civilization. Our ability to communicate using language and art seems to be our most distinguishing feature. But there's not much special about our emotions.

by 3minus1 14y ago

gph 14y ago

>Darwin's Selfish Gene I think you mean Dawkins. Easy to mix those two names up :)

3minus1 14y ago
Oh man, you're right. Reminds me of when I wrote an essay about something by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I kept calling him Martinez.

hackinthebochs 14y ago

I wouldn't say it violates the premise of The Selfish Gene. The question is, can the animal easily distinguish between members of its somewhat close kin and one it isn't closely related to? Without this ability, any animal that looks similar enough would be subject to behavior attributed to kin-altruism. For a lot of animals in the wild I would wager that they lack the ability to discriminate between close and distant kin.

dmitriy_ko 14y ago

You are right, the altruistic behavior is not indiscriminately directed to any member of the same specie. In fact, some within the grate ape family had developed a behavior to purposefully attack members of of the same "kind" in order to gain more resources for themselves. Chimpanzees and humans are two examples who exhibit this behavior (but not gorillas I believe). However, desire to help members of close kin is pretty universal. Either way, this distinction is irrelevant. What I was trying to say was simply that you shouldn't assume that human emotions and motivations are very special. We won the genetic lottery by getting a lucky combination of traits which allowed us build civilization. Our ability to communicate using language and art seems to be our most distinguishing feature. But there's not much special about our emotions.