{"id":194,"date":"2011-03-30T21:56:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T20:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2011\/03\/the-evolution-of-nice.html"},"modified":"2015-01-02T22:51:15","modified_gmt":"2015-01-02T21:51:15","slug":"evolution-of-nice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2011\/03\/evolution-of-nice.html","title":{"rendered":"The evolution of nice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Most people reading this blog will have heard of the \u201cselfish gene\u201d \u2013 the idea, formally defined by Hamilton and popularised by Dawkins, that what matters from the perspective of evolution is not organisms, but genes.
\nThose genes that maximise their chances of survival \u2013 regardless of what happens to individuals \u2013 will be the ones that come to predominate.<\/p>\n

It comes in for a lot of flack, mostly from people who wrongly equate selfish genes with selfish people. To be fair, there is also a lot of confusion over terms, with old ideas being reinvented under new terms \u2013 like \u201cgroup selection\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stuart West, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University in the UK, is here to put us straight. In a recent paper<\/a> written specifically with social scientists in mind, he lays down the power of the selfish gene. It\u2019s a great paper that takes a look at why so many misconceptions have taken hold and lays out, in non-specialist language, the reasons why most criticisms of the \u2018selfish gene\u2019 are the a result of confusion rather than insight. Anybody who\u2019s interested in the evolution of human altruism should read it!<\/p>\n

Most people with an interest in evolution understand why selfish genes do not mean selfish individuals. It\u2019s clear that selfish genes will benefit from co-operation (you scratch my back and I\u2019ll scratch yours, also known as reciprocity), and kin selection (as the biologist JBS Haldane famously put it, \u201cI would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins\u201d).<\/p>\n

What most people may not know (I certainly didn\u2019t before reading West\u2019s article) is that these, in fact, are the sole genetic basis for altruism (barring some esoteric mathematical possibilities of little practical significance). But if that\u2019s the case, how do you get from here to the apparently completely selfless altruism sometimes seen in humans? How come we are kind to strangers?<\/p>\n

Well, it really is all to do with how humans work together in groups.<\/p>\n

You scratch my back and I\u2019ll scratch Bob\u2019s<\/b><\/p>\n

Reciprocity doesn\u2019t need to be direct to be effective. If, by sharing with you I help to set up a virtuous circle, that will likely result in some benefit to me down the line. This has been seen in practice, with virtuous deeds propagating out to at least three degrees of separation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In group life, the issue is even clearer. If my deeds help the group to survive and grow, then I will benefit. From a genetic perspective, it doesn\u2019t matter that most of the benefit goes to others \u2013 so long as I also get some overall survival benefit.<\/p>\n

I would lay down my life for eight cousins\u2026 or the bloke who lives next door<\/b><\/p>\n

Throughout most of human existence, we\u2019ve lived in small groups and not travelled much. What that means is that, for our ancestors, pretty much everyone they met was a close genetic relative. Even if they were not related in any formal sense \u2013 not brothers, or cousins, for example \u2013 they would still be carrying similar genes.<\/p>\n

And that means that your \u2018kin, from a genetic standpoint, is likely to be anyone who\u2019s in your group. Even people in neighbouring groups are going to be closely related.<\/p>\n

So evolution would favour genes that promote altruism to anyone nearby \u2013 since they likely carry the same genes. It won\u2019t be perfect, but so long as migration is low, it\u2019s a good enough rule of thumb.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s this got to do with religion?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s popular at the moment to talk about religion in terms of \u2018gene-culture co-evolution\u2019. <\/b>The idea behind this is that religion is a cultural adaptation that builds upon a bunch of otherwise unrelated psychological misfirings to promote pro-social behaviour. Since cultures that are pro-social are more successful, religion spreads.<\/p>\n

All well and good, but the question then is, what kind of altruism does religion promote? If it promotes the kind of altruism that is directed towards neighbours, then it\u2019s working together with evolution, and so the two can co-evolve.<\/p>\n

But religion that promotes more general altruism \u2013 \u2018universal love\u2019 \u2013 is not going to be favoured, at least from an evolutionary perspective.<\/p>\n

Of course, in the modern world we see a lot of both kinds of religion. The challenge for anyone trying to explain religion in terms of evolutionary psychology is to explain this!<\/p>\n

\n

\"ResearchBlogging.org\"<\/a><\/span>
\nWest, S., El Mouden, C., & Gardner, A. (2010). Sixteen common misconceptions about the evolution of cooperation in humans Evolution and Human Behavior<\/span> DOI: 10.1016\/j.evolhumbehav.2010.08.001<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/span> This article by Tom Rees<\/b> was first published on Epiphenom<\/a>. It is licensed under Creative Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people reading this blog will have heard of the \u201cselfish gene\u201d \u2013 the idea, formally defined by Hamilton and popularised by Dawkins, that what matters from the perspective of evolution is not organisms, but genes. Those genes that maximise their chances of survival \u2013 regardless of what happens to individuals \u2013 will be the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe evolution of nice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Most people reading this blog will have heard of the "selfish gene" - the idea, formally defined by Hamilton and popularised by Dawkins, that what matters\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2011\/03\/evolution-of-nice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The evolution of nice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most people reading this blog will have heard of the "selfish gene" - 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