From: "Phil Roberts, Jr." 




[email protected] wrote:
> 
 
> 
> Well, one of the problems I'm having in understanding all this comes from
> the idea of 'ruthless selfishness'. I don't see how evolution really
> suggests that 'ruthless selfishness' would be the ideal; it seems too
> simplistic. 

Here's a bit of Dawkins rationale on the matter, in case you missed
it in my earlier post:


    Like Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in 
    some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive 
    world.  This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our 
    genes.  I shall argue that a predominent quality
    to be expected in a successful gene is RUTHLESS SELFISHNESS.  
    This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness 
    in individual behavior.  However, as we shall see, there are 
    special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own 
    selfish goals best by fostering a limited form
    of altruism.  'Special' and 'limited' are important words in 
    the last sentence.  Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, 
    universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are 
    concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense (Dawkins).


Of course, as often has to be repeated ad nauseum, the phrase "ruthless
selfishness" is simply a metaphor for the fact that natural selection
is a blind mechanical process, and that EFFICIENCY IN REPLICATING 
is all that nature is concerned with.  
Anything which reduces this effciency will be selected
out of the gene pool.  As such, there should be NO ALTRUISM PERIOD,
because it by definition amounts to sacrificing what is in a "gene's"
or an individual's interest for the interest of another.  This 
ALWAYS reduces efficiency in replicating.  As such, if you are going 
to enlist natural selection as your explanatory mechanism,
you have to accept some SEVERE CONSTRAINTS on what
you have a right to expect.  You can't just assume you get the 
same results you would get if a conscious entitity were doing the
design work.  The easiest thing in the world is to slip back and
forth from what you expect to see as a fully conscious human being,
and what you have a right to expect as a natural scientist who 
believes the whole thing is a result of a blind mechanical process.  

Well, not quite always.  The "special" and "limited" circumstances 
are the result of Williams and Hamilton's brilliant answer to a 
question which stymied evolutionist for over a hundred years.  
Given the severe constraints, how can we account for the apparent
altruism we occasional (very occasionally) find in nature.  The
answer was found, not in what is good for the group, which is 
simply not where the locus of replication is found, but rather
for what is good for the replicating mechanism.  And, here's the
key, its not just what is good for any given token of a replicating
mechanism, but rather what is good for the form of the mechanisms.
IOW, if a gene can sacrifice itself, but in doing so cause the 
proliferation of other copies of itself, then from a "gene's" 
point of view, that is selfish behavior (in terms of the cost
beneifit equations for the gene's form).  

I'm not very good at this.  But that's the general drift, although
guys like Dawkins do a much better job.   


> This seems to be used to imply germlin like genes lurking in
> every cell maliciously rubbing their greedy little tendrils together and
> plotting world domination like some B-grade villain. However, if we are
> to accept that genes (or memes) manage to carry information about
> behaviour then surely we could accept that some limitation to ruthless
> selfishness could be carried and with good reason - if the organism is
> _too_ selfish (in a 'nasty' sense of destroying others and promoting only
> their own welfare) then within a social species wouldn't there be some
> risk of pissing off (scaring) enough of the other tribe/group members
> that the organism would get itself killed? This certainly seems to happen
> in reality and is popular in fable so perhaps we could suppose that while
> selfish genes survive, those that provide impetus to make the organism so
> selfish they seem dangerous to the group are killed off or deprived in
> various ways - enough that their reproductive potential is curbed anyway.
> 

Think of the co-operation you get within a pack of hyenas hunting
down a prey, and who are  highly dependent on each other to survive, 
and therefore have to value each other INSTRUMENTALLY, and think 
about their co-operation when it comes to actually eating the prey,
where there INSTRINSIC values become more apparent.  As I mentioned
earlier, hyenas are shaped they way they are largely because it makes
it harder to be eaten by other hyenas (can't remember the source, damn 
it).  

But I'm getting too far off the beam here.  Sociobiology is not
my area of expertise.  My theory begins where sociobiology leaves off.
And where it leaves off (think of this as the output of a complex
compuational process) can best be represented by those who do this
sort of thing for a living:



    Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a 
    society in which individuals cooperate generously
    and unselfishly towards a common good, you can 
    expect little help from biological nature.  Let 
    us try to TEACH generosity and altruism, because 
    WE ARE BORN SELFISH.  Let us understand what our
    selfish genes are upt to, because we may then at 
    least have the chance to UPSET THEIR DESIGNS, 
    SOMETHING THAT NO OTHER SPECIES HAS EVER ASPIRED
    TO.  (Dawkins)  [emphasis mine]


  The identification of individuals as the unit of
  selection is a central theme in Darwin's thought.
  This idea underliees his most radical claim: that
  evolution is purposeless and without inherent
  direction. ... Evolution does not recognize the 'good'
  of the ecosystem' or even the 'good of the species.'
  Any harmony or stability is only an indirect result of
  individuals relentlessly pursuing their own self-interest
  -- in modern parlance, getting more of their genes into
  future generations by greater reproductive success.
  Individuals are the unit of selection; the "struggle
  for existence" is a matter among individuals (Stephen
  Gould).


  _With very few exceptions_, the only parts of the theory
  of natural selection which have been supported by
  mathematical models admit no possiblity of the
  evolution of any characters which are on average to
  the disadvantage of the individuals possessing them.
  If natural selection followed the classical models
  exclusively, species would not show any behavior more
  positively social than the coming together of the
  sexes and parental care....

  Clearly from a gene's point of view it is worthwhile 
  to deprive a large number of distant relatives in order
  to extract a small reproductive advantage. (W. D. Hamilton)



    Like Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in 
    some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive 
    world.  This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our 
    genes.  I shall argue that a predominent quality
    to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness.  
    This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness 
    in individual behavior.  However, as we shall see, there are 
    special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own 
    selfish goals best by fostering a limited form
    of altruism.  'Special' and 'limited' are important words in 
    the last sentence.  Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, 
    universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are 
    concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense (Dawkins).


  Even with qualifications regarding the possibility
  of group selection, the portrait of the biologically
  based social personality that emerges is one of
  predominantly self-serving opportunism _even_for_
  _the_most_social_species_, for all species in which
  there is genetic competition among the social co-
  operators, that is, where all members have the chance
  of parenthood (Donald Campbell).


  It is ironic that Ashley Montagu should criticize Lorentz as 
  'a direct descendent of the "nature red in tooth and claw" thinkers
  of the nineteenth century....'  As I understand Lorentz' view of
  evolution, he would be very much at one with Montagu in rejecting
  the implications of Tennyson's phrase.  Unlike both of them, I 
  think 'nature red in tooth and claw' sums up our modern understanding
  of natural selection admirably. (Dawkins).



-- 

                  Phil Roberts, Jr.

       The Psychodynamics of Genetic Indeterminism:
Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock
     http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/