Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
cal descriptions.
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For Dawkins, discussing this from the gene's perspec-
tive, the point is not the survival of the individual but the survival of
copies of the genes. Since relatives are the ones who share these genes,
altruistic behavior toward relatives is to be expected.
As if this were not problematic enough, the term also is involved in a
dispute over the workings of natural selection, with the debate falling
roughly between group selection and kinship selection, and with the
phrase “inclusive fitness” being introduced for good measure as well.
Historically, most claimed that natural selection proceeded through
group selection—that is, through behavior that was to the advantage of
the group. In this model, altruistic behavior was self-sacrificial behavior
for the good of the group. The late William Hamilton developed a
complex mathematical argument for kin selection. This was altruistic
behavior on the part of the individual “towards relatives with whom they
have genes in common.” Inclusive fitness, again a concept developed by
Hamilton, “explains how natural selection can favor altruism. This can
happen if the benefits of altruism can be made to fall on individuals who
are likely to be altruist rather than random members of the popula-
tion.”
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Thus from Hamilton's perspective, inclusive fitness is a broader
notion that can include both kin and group selection as mechanisms for
the evolution of altruism.
Now the problem: Is this explanation relevant to human behavior? Is
this mechanism of natural selection operative in our nature as well? Are
we genetically predisposed to favor our relatives over others? In a
controversial paper, Hamilton argued the following:
It can even be suggested that certain genes or traditions of the pastoralists revi-
talize the conquered people with an ingredient of progress which tends to die
out in a large panmietic population for reasons already discussed. I have in mind
altruism itself or the part of altruism which is perhaps better described as self-
sacrificial daring. By the time of the Renaissance, it may be that the mixing of
genes and cultures (or cultures alone, if these are the only vehicles, which I doubt)
has continued long enough to bring the old mercantile thoughtfulness and
infused daring into conjunction in a few individuals who then find courage for
all kinds of inventive innovation against the resistance of established thought and
practice. Often, however, the cost in fitness of such altruism and sublimated
pugnacity to the individuals concerned is by no means metaphorical, and the
benefits to fitness, such as they are, go to a mass of individuals whose genetic
correlation with the innovator must be slight indeed. Thus civilization probably
slowly reduces its altruism of all kinds, including the kinds needed for cultural
creativity.
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