Altruism - to what extent is it genetic?

[LogicAndFairness]

All nationalists should have a basic grasp of the concept of Hamilton's rule, which states that relatives are worth helping in direct proportion to their blood relatedness - and which is the basis of "kin selection".

This is today accepted as being as fundamental to an understanding of evolutionary biology as Newton's laws of motion are to physics.

But while such instincts are quite straight-forward in wild animals, they become warped and confused in the case of domesticated animals and humans.

Richard Dawkins says that genuine altruism towards non-kin is a misfiring of a genetic urge to help bodies that contain a high proportion of our own alleles. Hamilton's rule implies that such misfiring (insufficiently discriminating altruism) on a large scale will cause the very allele for altruism itself to be phased out of the gene pool - and make it genetically advantageous to be an exploiter of others' generosity until such "goodness" disappears as a trait in the population.

Is this happening to humanity? And is this compounded by the discovery that increasing genetic diversity in a population causes altruism to become proportionately less common? (Professor Putnam).

[BGD]

Biological Altruism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

[LogicAndFairness]

Thank you for helping readers with that excellent link BGD.

[david H]

LaF, that scientific statement is very similar to the traditional British view. Edmund Burke defined a nation as involving a shared identity, history and ancestry, and continuity: “… it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living and those who are dead, but between those who are living and those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

[BGD]

Arthur Keith is also worth a look. While time has moved on a lot of what he said still has value A New Theory of Human Evolution | arthurkeith

[LogicAndFairness]

LaF, that scientific statement is very similar to the traditional British view. Edmund Burke defined a nation as involving a shared identity, history and ancestry, and continuity: “… it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living and those who are dead, but between those who are living and those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

Yes, that is how it should be, David. I see many on this forum to whom that idea is anathema. Simply choosing not to help the nation maintain its numbers or choosing to miscegenate is a way of demonstrating a lack of love for one's own nation. And it is hard to feel altruistic to one's family, let alone to fellow nationals, when most of them are traitors. Something precious has been lost and perhaps will never be recovered. But we have no choice than to try and revive that love.

[LogicAndFairness]

All nationalists should have a basic grasp of the concept of Hamilton's rule, which states that relatives are worth helping in direct proportion to their blood relatedness - and which is the basis of "kin selection".

This is today accepted as being as fundamental to an understanding of evolutionary biology as Newton's laws of motion are to physics.

But while such instincts are quite straight-forward in wild animals, they become warped and confused in the case of domesticated animals and humans.

Richard Dawkins says that genuine altruism towards non-kin is a misfiring of a genetic urge to help bodies that contain a high proportion of our own alleles. Hamilton's rule implies that such misfiring (insufficiently discriminating altruism) on a large scale will cause the very allele for altruism itself to be phased out of the gene pool - and make it genetically advantageous to be an exploiter of others' generosity until such "goodness" disappears as a trait in the population.

Is this happening to humanity? And is this compounded by the discovery that increasing genetic diversity in a population causes altruism to become proportionately less common? (Professor Putnam).

It fits in with what we expect to see among sub-saharan Africans, the most genetic diversity in the world is there.

In this plea for the abolition of the slave trade, Anthony Benezet, a Quaker of French Huguenot descent, pointed out that if buyers did not demand slaves, the supply would end. "Without purchasers," he argued, "there would be no trade; and consequently every purchaser as he encourages the trade, becomes partaker in the guilt of it." He contended that guilt existed on both sides of the Atlantic. There are Africans, he alleged, "who will sell their own children, kindred, or neighbors."

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/...t/aopart3.html

Africa's bitter cycle of child slavery

About 200,000 children in West and Central Africa are slaves, sold by their parents or duped. The children are starved, abused and beaten. But some get their own slaves when they grow up.


July 12, 2009|Robyn Dixon
KPONE, GHANA — Rebecca Agwu told her 5-year-old son, John, not to cry when she sent him away to live with relatives four years ago. Mary Mootey sent away her 4-year-old son, Evans, telling him he was going off to school. The two boys, now 9, from the same town in Ghana, ended up being forced to work 14 hours a day fishing on Lake Volta and being beaten for the smallest lapse.
Rewind about two decades: Rebecca Agwu was a child herself when her mother sent her away to live with an aunt.

Child Slavery In Africa | Africa's bitter cycle of child slavery - Los Angeles Times

Girls aged 12 to 17 are the most common targets of the gangs, brothel owners and others - including their own mothers - who are forcing them to sell sex.

http://www.stopdemand.org/afawcs0112...wsdetails.html

[LilyThePink]

It fits in with what we expect to see among sub-saharan Africans, the most genetic diversity in the world is there.


African American Odyssey: Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy (Part 1)


Child Slavery In Africa | Africa's bitter cycle of child slavery - Los Angeles Times


http://www.stopdemand.org/afawcs0112...wsdetails.html

Ah, here you are LAF.

I notice that you seem to be conflating biological altruism with the more generally understood meaning of the word.(as demonstrated in your mentions of Dawkins and Hamilton)

This first needs to be ironed out before applying the concepts to various news stories.




Nice to see you again BTW

[LogicAndFairness]

Ah, here you are LAF.

I notice that you seem to be conflating biological altruism with the more generally understood meaning of the word.(as demonstrated in your mentions of Dawkins and Hamilton)

This first needs to be ironed out before applying the concepts to various news stories.




Nice to see you again BTW

All altruism is biological and that is how I will always appear to "conflate" it. The reason some people love their children and kindred more than others is because they have a genetic investment in those that share most genes and this feeling became an instinctive response because those without it did not help the genetic trait to spread. It is all a question of: will this gene spread or won't it? The more genetic diversity, the more the genetic cost to anyone who puts themselves out to help others. (In places like sub-saharan Africa even one's own children in many cases).

Humans that commit an early suicide are going to be less likely to increase the numbers of those prone to think like that (ie the silly suicidal idea), (other than as a short term destructive memetic fashion perhaps) while those who do what they can to get more bodies that share their genes in the world are clearly going to have more people like them around and survive/be favoured by natural selection.

Natural selection affects humans so long as we have different groups of us (not just races but anyone) who have traits that either let them be biologically successful or to die off. There is still this variation. Very strongly in fact.

[LilyThePink]

All altruism is biological and that is how I will always appear to "conflate" it. The reason some people love their children and kindred more than others is because they have a genetic investment in those that share most genes and this feeling became an instinctive response because those without it did not help the genetic trait to spread. It is all a question of: will this gene spread or won't it? The more genetic diversity, the more the genetic cost to anyone who puts themselves out to help others. (In places like sub-saharan Africa even one's own children in many cases).

You keep making this statement, but it isn't borne out by the majority of definitions given by a quick google of the term. It is also not borne out by the Stanford article you cited, which makes the differentiation very clearly

You should make this differention too, in the same spirit, to avoid confusion

Humans that commit an early suicide are going to be less likely to increase the numbers of those prone to think like that (ie the silly suicidal idea), (other than as a short term destructive memetic fashion perhaps) while those who do what they can to get more bodies that share their genes in the world are clearly going to have more people like them around and survive/be favoured by natural selection.

Natural selection affects humans so long as we have different groups of us (not just races but anyone) who have traits that either let them be biologically successful or to die off. There is still this variation. Very strongly in fact.