File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 656


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
> 
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