While I was walked around seeing all of the volunteers at work, it provoked me to consider whether this inter-species care and concern might constitute an example of pure- rather than reciprocal-altruism. In the next instant I realised that someone else would say something along the lines of - ''they only do it because it makes them feel good'' and that is an 'evolutionary' response. Unfortunately I am a reductionist by training and I have to specifically ask what is the proposed mechanism for this hypothesis and how might it work. Forgive me if I enumerate:

1) We need a gene mutation which will code for this social response in the phenotype This instinctively seems unlikely to me, but pressing on -

2) Taken in isolation this specific mutation must be at least as powerful as other gene mutaions which migh code for stronger legs, better eyesight etc......Again even more unlikely, but pressing on..........

3) There might well be competing gene mutations coding for selfish behaviour which will be approperiate under times of environmental stress. Which one will prevail in the long-term. My feeling as that at a boleneck stage selfishness will win out every time. Pressing on, however..........

4) Most importantly, can someone show me the reciprocal altruism gene(s)?

In summary my view is that many people, when in doubt, reach for the natural selection paradigm as an explanatory tool for almost anything & everything and that this kneejerk reaction often has no rational scientific basis .

I should add that in many aspects the extended paradigm has all the characteristics of a believe system, which I like to call evolutionism.

Saving the lives of an animal makes you feel important which makes you feel good. After all, if it weren't for you, those animals would be in worse shape or even dead. You must be a good person to spend your time helping. You're definitely a better person than the sonofabitch that cut you off in traffic on your way over to the shelter, and savings these animals proves it so.

As Joey Tribbiani said, "There is no unselfish good deed."

"I like helping dying animals because it makes all the girls want to do me." --uncited.

And tomorrow there will probably be a thread about how sadists get a thrill from being.... well, sadistic. Altruism or cruelty, there's always a choice - you should be thankful for those that choose to help.

I wrote a paper on this a while back, about how there's no such thing as a truly 'unselfish' deed. In fact, all deeds in one way or another trace back to a root selfishness that is, what I called in my paper, "human nature." It makes us feel good to help others. Not to mention, as diplomacy players, present company can see that helping someone for no readily apparent reason can, in fact, pay off.

On to another idea, in the same vein, your initial example provides another talking point, with regards to darwinism, that I'm not entirely certain you noticed. When we help weaker animals, and endangered ones, we are, in fact, playing god. Consider the phrase, "survival of the fittest.' At no point does it state anything about someone helping the weaker, or unfit animals to survive. In fact, that is simply standing in the way of progress.

But that's just my two cents. Bet this post gets ignored/lost in the discussion.

@ fiedler there's always a choice

I agree with this bald statement. For years I battled with how much choice the child in Bangladesh (or inner-city Detroit?) actually had when compared to one born into a 'nice' middle class family in the suburbs. A couple of years ago* I started to think that free-will or choice actually worked on two intimately connected levels or orbits. The first was at the level of the individual, as you say above, while the second was at the level of the community, or society as a whole, if you like. Sometimes the teeth on both wheels in the mechanism need to be engaged to turn in the same forward and productive direction.

As to being 'thankful', some would perhaps regard that act as prayer?

* If someone is interested I can elaborate if you like, but it is a little personal.

"Bangladesh (or inner-city Detroit?) "

Really? Have you been to either?

i largely disagree with your analysis.

Your definition of evolutionism is fine and i whole-heartedly approve.

How and Ever, i disagree with your analysis of the observed behaviour, and as a physicist i'm used to the reductionist methods you talk of, i just think you're applying them badly.

In this case i believe the human brain is rather flexible and has a given set of tools (which includes alturism, as has been shown in rats and chimps) and that the complexity of the human brain allows us to apply them in different ways. (i don't neccesarily think there is only a genetic component to this behaviour, this is also a feature of the environment which the 'care workers' grew up in - or essentially their neural network, and how it developed to care for animals - or to put it another way, how they are applying their specific set of genetically pre-determined tools)

The second tool i think you're missing is not something which codes for loving all things, but instead something which allows us identify family members. When applied generally this means we can love our pets and care for them whether they are genetically related or not.

We are socially conditioned to certain responces, and the genetic explanation probably fails on it's own, but given your request that someone show you the gene, i think i have to point out how unfair this request is.

It is more than likely that some people with this gene exhibit different behaviour, not because they are incapbale of alturism, but instead because they are only alturistic to their 'own' people which they identify not with other mammals/animals, but instead with a particular social grouping (religious, political or ethnic)

in short, i imagine it is a combination of genes rather than any specific one which codes for this, and not being a geneticist i can't give any examples of this kind of complexity in mamals. However the social criteria is i believe equally important to consider.

Flexibility of humans to act in the best interest of the group as varying challenges approach is the strength which has allowed our population grow to 7 billion. Is that neural infrastructure which we all share not flexible enough that some people will care for animals even at the expense of their own genes? They can currently spread ideas as memes instead of genes... a qualitatively different approach, but someone could equally write book titled the 'selfish meme' and explain how successful ideas are taken up by humans and thus replicate... how they mutate, and how mutant strains can be more or less successful.

and why it is evolutionary beneficial for humans to be able to use 'successful' ideas.

@Onar: re 'playing god'

i entirely disagree, we're not slowing down evolution, it doesn't have anywhere to go, competition among species is also balanced out by co-operation. Living Systems develop symbiotic relaitonships and share resrouces to benifit both. If we humans happen to be doing this we're integrating these animlas into our system rather the letting them die in the wild (the wild we have destroyed) this is a part of evolution aswell.

It's not slowing down because there is no target place which it is trying to get. It is just changing. Evolution can produce less complex systems, entropy sometimes requires it, system complexity sometimes prohibits growth and systems collapse (whether that system is biological, social or environmental)

both competition and co-operation are important. And both dynamically push evolution 'forward' - that is forward in time, not toward any 'perfect' or 'most fit' solution. Simply towards the future which will be different....

@ Orthiac

Thank you for your considered reply, I would respond as follows from the perspective of a geochemist rather than a biologist!
1) You write: - ''We are socially conditioned to certain responces, and the genetic explanation probably fails on it's own, but given your request that someone show you the gene, i think i have to point out how unfair this request is.''

I am afraid you misquote me, I did ot write gene but rather gene(s), a crucial difference I think that you will agree, which affects much of what you subsequently write. It is funny how we all (myself included :-]) somehow conspire to see what we want to see.

2) Your argument elsewhere seems to revolve on the interactions of out genetic makeup with the prevailing and, largely temporary, environment. I do not take issue with you on this, it is classical stuff, often forgotten by many ignorant 'evolutionists', particularly some Social Darwinists. Where I am unclear, however, is whether you remove some human behaviourial patterns from any genetic constraint and, if so, why.

3) The idea of the ''group'' (hunter gatherer, family, nation state, race -??) as an evolutionary driver interests me greatly. Ultimately, given sufficent environmental pressure, this must result in speciation, wouldn't you agree? And if so what implications might this carry, for the human race in particular.

4) The idea of memes I find very problematical and, to be frank, a classic example of the evolutionism to which we both refer. Please note I do not argue with the idea of cultural transmission; I just query the application of natural selection to the process. Dieter Lohmar, I understand, in particular is very good on this although he does not use the word evolutionism ( I am keeping that one for myself!)

5) What do you exactly do you mean when you qualifiy 'evolutionary' with 'beneficial'? Given mutation is random and given that chanes in the environment are random, isn't the whole process itself essentially directionless? Today's succesful, adaptation may will be tomorrow's recipe for disaster, under a different environmental regime. I think that words such as beneficial and forward etc. in the context of evolution are essentially emotive and have no place in the discussion. Just one of my little hobby horses :-]

Thank you again for your considered reply.

@orathiac:

You say that we humans destroy 'the wild,' implying certain animal's habitats. But perhaps, this is another form of evolution. As we are fitter animals, the less fit ones, as per darwinism, are supposed to die out.

I agree that there is no goal or target to evolution, but human interference seems to be shoehorning nature into one. Take, for example, global warming. Assume, for a second, that it is happening naturally, rather than through human causes. For example, because the sun is heating up. Now, if this assumption is followed, then preserving animals meant to live in warmer climates should thrive, while those meant to live in cooler ones won't. Granted, this may lead to the end of certain species, sadly, this may include many species of penguin, but if man isn't playing god, then he will allow this to happen. Again, I want to stress that that was a hypothetical scenario, and I hope penguins, as a species shall continue on for a long, long time.

Also, on another note, thank-you for replying to my message.

@ Onar
you write - 'Consider the phrase, "survival of the fittest.'

I have indeed researched this phrase. In fact, despite claims by some that it has a specific and unemotive bilogical meaning, I am afraid that this is not the case. It was originally used by Herbert Spencer and adopted from him by Darwin only for the later editions of ''On the origin of species''. I think we must be very niave to think that Darwin meant anything other than Spencer's original meaning - "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."
Spencer then went on to apply the term to matters economic, so my hypothesis is that what I refer to as 'evolutionism' has its origins with Darwin and Spencer themselves. Even if it might be considered politically/scientifically incorrect to do so.

@fulhamish:

I think you're getting bogged down in semantics. The phrasing and wording are nowhere near as important as my original point. You bring up this quote:

"This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."

which is not incompatible in the slightest with my argument. Should I rephrase, saying that the favoured races are the ones meant to survive, and as humans, we are getting in the way of progress via keeping the unfavoured alive?

Darwyn +1000

@ Onar

You are probably right about semantics and as you can see, from my appaling English, words are not me forte! On occassion, however, the analysis of the use of particular words by particular people in particular contexts can be informative, wouldn't you agree? A good example is your use of the words ''getting in the way of progress'' in your last post. I wonder what caused you to pick this particular word, over say the word ''regress'' or perhaps ''process'', dependng on your meaning?

I sympathise with your view, if I have it correct, that we are perhaps as humans are CURRENTLY interfering with the evolutionary process. But to bring you back to the title of the thread for a moment - I wonder if you too are annoyed by the tendancy to look for a Natural Selection paradigm explanation in so many areas where the science offers little or no support for its application?

@Beneficial: "5) What do you exactly do you mean when you qualifiy 'evolutionary' with 'beneficial'? Given mutation is random and given that chanes in the environment are random, isn't the whole process itself essentially directionless? Today's succesful, adaptation may will be tomorrow's recipe for disaster, under a different environmental regime. I think that words such as beneficial and forward etc. in the context of evolution are essentially emotive and have no place in the discussion"

I whole-heartedly agree, how ever, some tools which increase adaptability (like the brain) can give a creature greater chance of surviving different environmental conditions.

on the other hand stable environmental conditions will/may select for simpler creatures which don't need brains...

If you think about it in terms of temperature regulation (or survivability against changes in temperature in the environment) there is an advantage for multi-cellular organisms to have a gland which is specialized into providing a greater range of conditions which can be regulated (essentially controlling the internal environment of the body.. ie where cells live)

Contrasting with single-celled organisms (bacteria) or no cell'd life (viruses) they may have a much simpler regulatory system (or none) and they will have less things which can go wrong, but in some cases will be completely disabled when they wander out of their normal environmental temperature range (so a virus which goes dormant when it is frozen... a lot of viruses would just be destroyed, those which actually manage to survive coated in some protein - if i'm not mistaken - are better adapted for a wider temperature range, but they are still more limited than something which has a specialized part for dealing with this environmental variability...)

Anyway, yes, i'd agree fully. I fear i may have failed to properly convey some of the ideas, but i think more generally that adaptability CAN be selected for, and this can lead to more complex organisms, meanwhile if the environment is particularly stable then i imagine simple systems will be preferred...

@$ and the idea of memes, I agree once again, this is taking the ideas from evolution and applying them to ideas which is not necessarily fair or appropriate.

Nevertheless, i think we should build a theory of memes, and it should borrow from some evolutionary ideas.... i do accept it will have several different qualities and features...

@Onar : 'As we are fitter animals, the less fit ones, as per darwinism, are supposed to die out. '

No, not supposed to. Darwins theory is a description of how things happen 'in nature'. How things are 'supposed' to happen is for US to decide. In this case we are controlling our environment, and i don't think you can fall back on a description of a 'natural' system and use it to justify any kind of human behaviour. Humans have to decide for themselves what they are 'supposed' to do.

I don't beleive 1) we can play god - we a re mere humans and everything we do is natural. (man-made disasters are just ones that we could have prevented by acting in a different way, natural disasters are just ones which we can't figure out how to prevent)

I don't believe 2) there is any a priori supposed/right and wrong, when it comes to our interactions with the rest of nature. I don't think we 'should' act in a given way, unless we're trying to control our environment even more.

I believe we can make choices about the kind of world we WANT to live in. And then say, 'this is supposed to work like so' OR 'We should do this, for our greater goal'.

But i believe this is merely a human plan for control of or harmony with our environment.

@The idea of group "3) The idea of the ''group'' (hunter gatherer, family, nation state, race -??) as an evolutionary driver interests me greatly. Ultimately, given sufficent environmental pressure, this must result in speciation, wouldn't you agree? And if so what implications might this carry, for the human race in particular."

i really have to agree. I guess the closest example would be the south of the US in the 50s, no interbreeding for generations (between blacks and whites) would likely have resulted in speciation. I think it takes a long time for humans and the cross-cultural 'evolution' of ideas is a bigger and faster method of developing our adaptability and improving our chances of survival.

This probably over-comes some 'group-ing' (in this case, historically, it was a social movement which was based on the idea of freedom and equality, which in principle was to avoid internal conflict and civil war...)

Separately i think it would really interesting to approach this problem from a longer view point, and look at how speciation HAS occurred in the homo genus. ie Neanderthal and Homo Floresiensis (hobbit man) and eh, devonian man? maybe i'm messing up a bit on that last one... was there three species of homo alive in the past 50,000 years, or was there four?