Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 10:43:27 -0500 From: Reg Lilly <rlilly-AT-scott.skidmore.edu> Subject: Re: PLC: Arguing for Altruism Thanks for the valuable distinction. Gould I like -- I find Dawkins and his progency interesting but errant. Ciao, Reg > Actually whether "altruism" is a problem to an evolutionary theorist > depends to a great extent on which side of a very philosophical divide the > theorist is one. One group does all calculations from the stand point of > propogation of genes. This viewpoint is held by Maynard-Smith, popularised > by Dawkins, and is now the view of a rather tight clique of people. They > have lots of problems modeling altruistic behavior because the central > assumption is that one can assume that all behavior must be treatable as > selfish if it works, and hence can be modeled using hte same sort of > mathematics one uses to model rational economic actors. > > On the other side of the divide are the theorists who do not believe that > one can model evolutionary processes as cost-beenfit economic models, and > includes the population genetics of Kimura, the theories of Stephan Jay > Gould, environmental evolution and so on. None of these theories have the > slightest problem with "altru-istic" behavior. > > Stirling Newberry > business: openmarket.com > personal: allegro-AT-thecia.net > War and Romance: http://www.thecia.net/users/allegro/public_html > > --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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