1. Comment #82993 by aquilacane on October 28, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Hardly worth pointing out, but here we go. When a person doesn't give their seat on the bus to an elderly lady, they are recognized by the town's folk as an uncaring selfish prick. Hence, when that same uncaring selfish prick suddenly needs help, or food in a time of shortage, a friend, support, medical treatment, advice, justice, relief, or anything else that members of a community may require from that community, they are less likely to receive it.

If a community member who also survived the bus crash (lets say their bus crashed) had to suddenly stop the neck from bleeding of the selfish prick who didn't give up his seat, or stop the neck from bleeding of the gentleman who did give up the seat, the selfish prick would probably die. Dead people make poor evolutionary progenitors. The act of evolution requires success in survival for its effects to be recognized. Hence, there is an evolutionary advantage to giving up your seat to an old lady on the bus.

While I'm editing, I may as well add this other argument. A female on the bus sees this selfish prick not give up his seat. She is looking for a suitable mate, someone who demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice to help others, a caring person. She decides that, although selfish prick man is attractive, he is an ass, whereas I'll give you my seat man is less visually attractive, but he shows good qualities for domestic home life. After he gets out of the hospital, the two hook-up and have kids. Bingo, evolutionary advantage over dead guy.

I would have thought a religious person would understand the reason why you are good, and not just the order to be so.

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2. Comment #82995 by Luweewu on October 28, 2007 at 1:24 pm

A farming/herding society, such as we have had for the last 10,000-odd years is always looking for new land, fresher soil, greener grass. The elderly are an obvious disadvantage.

However, humans evolved as hunter/gatherers. It is more advantageous for hunter/gatherers to maintain one territory very well. Especially in pre-literate societies such as these, the adaptive advantage of caring for the elderly was indispensible. The elderly alone possesed decades of knowledge as to where certain prey animals graze or nest, and where certain edible and medicinal fruits grow. They also had the most refined and practiced memes for building boats, axes, bows, hand axes, fires, homes, etc.

This is why we feel an intrinsic need to keep them around and healthy, because it makes it easier for us to be well and multiply.

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3. Comment #82997 by Luweewu on October 28, 2007 at 1:27 pm

Sorry to call you out, aquilacane, but your explanation doesn't hold water. The question is addressing why we consider someone selfish in the first place, and why anyone bothers keeping around someone who can't carry water and pick berries.

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4. Comment #83001 by steve99 on October 28, 2007 at 1:35 pm

I would say that there isn't an evolutionary advantage. However, there is an evolutionary advantage to being nice.

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5. Comment #83003 by aquilacane on October 28, 2007 at 1:39 pm

Luweewu, I don't think you did call me out. My explanation holds plenty of water. I think both of our arguments hold plenty of water. Having the knowledge of the elderly was a great evolutionary advantage, I would say more so then than now. But evolutionary advantage doesn't really mean much unless you define what an evolutionary advantage is. I would guess living to see another day, and that's pretty much it.

People who disrupt the community don't tend to do well. I'm sure the prick on the bus isn't thinking, this old bag of knowledge can go to hell, and everyone else thinking, how could he be so rude to someone so wise. They think, what an ass, she's frail, and probably confused. He just doesn't care, he's no use to the society, he's expendable.

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6. Comment #83006 by Bonzai on October 28, 2007 at 1:48 pm

Why do people think there is an evolution explanation to everything? What is the evolution explanation of gravity or aviation? The absence of an evolutionary explanation does not prove "God" is the explanation. There may or may not be an evolutionary advantage of having butt cracks, so let's see how God explains the butt crack.

I find this exercise of picking out some random trait and try to find an ad hoc evolutionary explanation mostly pointless and rather contrived. It is nothing more than just coming up with some plausible sounding stories in the language of genes, selections and what not.

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7. Comment #83010 by Spinoza on October 28, 2007 at 1:56 pm

A well functioning, moral, and courteous society is the ultimate evolutionary adaptation.

Q.E.D.

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8. Comment #83011 by mikebreed on October 28, 2007 at 1:58 pm

I'm no expert, but the answer would seem obvious: "There isn't one." There is equally little evolutionary advantage to be gained from sexual congress performed with contraception. Does that mean the urge that led you to have said sex has no basis in evolution?

As it stands, this question is surely woefully simplistic, as are many of those in the ID/Creationist box of tricks. Just because the moral impulse to give up your seat doesn't have any direct evolutionary benefit doesn't mean it isn't ultimately born of deep-seated impulses, which are themselves the products of natural selection.

Much more interesting to ask whether the act is truly "moral", in the sense of confirming to some ultimate Good, or simply the result of an amorphous, unconscious instinct that comes ultimately from evolutionary self-interest. Or is it just the way you were brought up? And if so, why were you brought up that way? And why has it 'stuck'? Etc, etc.

Moral philosophy only really gets interesting when you get God out of the way.

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9. Comment #83016 by Bonzai on October 28, 2007 at 2:05 pm

Actually on second thought there may be an evolutionary disadvantage in offering a seat to pregnant women because according to the scooternyc school of thought this encourages dependency and removes personal responsibility. In the end this may lead to a gene pool of people who expect charity and hand outs.

Why does she get knocked up if she can't afford a car? Since she cannot even pay for a car and stay home during pregnancy she obviously is not qualified to have children. What if she has a miscarriage and cannot pay for the hospital bill? Does she expect tax payers to bail her out? No, we should let her stand in the bus to punish her for her irresponsible behaviour.

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10. Comment #83017 by aquilacane on October 28, 2007 at 2:17 pm

If you look at the Sabertoothed tiger and consider that his teeth were an evolutionary advantage to catching large prey, but later in their evolutionary history, they large teeth became a disadvantage when there were fewer large prey animals to catch. One could argue that there can only be historical advantages to a behaviour or trait in general and no absolute advantages, as the environment decides whether or not the trait is in fact an advantage or not. Perhaps beating old women will become an advantage as we take them out of the food consuming population after recording any knowledge that may provide the group with any benefit.

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11. Comment #83018 by Luweewu on October 28, 2007 at 2:21 pm

aquilicane-- Your explanation would certainly encourage selflessness of this kind, but only if the trait is already there in the first place. It begs the question, "why do people think frailty deserves benevolence?", or "why are the elderly entitled to more gentle treatment in the first place?"

Evolutionary psychology is in large part the study of the adaptive advantage of our "gut feelings" on morality. This is at the root of this question.

Let me give you a (perhaps silly) parable as an explanation:

If you've ever seen the film I, Robot with Will Smith, you might remember his explanation for his dislike of robotic servants.

Smith's character explains at one point that years past, his car was run off a bridge, as well as another car containing a prepubescent girl. A robotic passerby assesed the wreckage and injuries, and determined that Smith's character had a higher probability of survival. On this basis, he chose to save him instead of the young girl.

A human, on the other hand, would more likely have saved the girl. The film's treats this decision as natural and requiring no further exploration.

However, it is simply a conflict between biological programming (evolutionary psychology) and robotic programming. In the former case, a human recognizes that a young female is more valuable to the propogation of the species than any man, much less one past his sexual peak.

Now consider in contrast, while we find value in preserving the elderly, it is trumped by other moral questions. Consider a burning building. We consider it morally necessary to save first the female children, then the male children, then the adult women. Adult men can fend for themselves, as they're less critical to the breeding stock.

Now, we don't consider this rationally as your second paragraph suggests. It's a gut feeling that's been forced on us over millions of years.

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12. Comment #83034 by sillywhispers on October 28, 2007 at 4:32 pm

Because wealth, status and influence are often held by the eldest in a community, it might behoove a selfish person to be considerate of the elderly.

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13. Comment #83051 by phil rimmer on October 28, 2007 at 5:56 pm

32,000 years ago the number of old people suddenly quadrupled in the fossil record. Speech probably became sufficiently sophisticated that their accumulated wisdom could be usefully shared. Scientists and historians were born. They were feted and fed. After two years, however, they'd run out of wisdom. (They've told the one about getting water from the glacier in the mountains and how to stun a gazelle.) No, to make it to a ripe old, and well-fed, age they have to start making things up, powerful, impressive things. An endless list of them. Religion and priests are born and real veneration of the old begins, and so does metaphorical standing up.

Genetic selection to learn from the elderly confers a few extra genuine points of knowledge that in turn confer extra reproductive fitness. Memetic propensity to learn from the elderly confers a mass of gobbledy gook and the techniques to generate more of it that in its turn confers years more of well-fed meme spreading.

The parasite of religion may well have served us proud for 30,000 years. For the last 2,000, however, the balance between fact and fiction didn't change as fast as it could have done.

More recently, we stand up because we see discomfort, because we see ourselves, because we can say thank you for their generation's contribution to our generation.

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14. Comment #83063 by Robert Maynard on October 28, 2007 at 7:23 pm

In case you hadn't noticed, at this point in our existence, humans are mostly operating at a level above natural selection, and our civilisation has a habit of rendering selective pressures extremely weak. There's no evolutionary advantage to taking steps to help women live past menopause, either, let alone standing up for them on a bus.
The reasons we help people are a consequence of natural selection, and a consequence of our evolved cognitive equipment.

Pathologies and brain dysfunctions nonwithstanding, we have a natural tendency to treat things as though they have agency which can be reasoned with (talking to our cars or computers when they fail, or pets when you want them to do something, etc.), and particularly with humans, we have a natural tendency to experience what happens to each other vicariously. This is basically why Jackass is so painful to watch, why romance movies make us all gooey, and so on.
Simply, it feels good to help people, particularly people who would otherwise suffer, even subtly. It even feels good to see other people help people, but the payoff is likely a tad smaller. It feels good because of earlier instances where altruism was selected for in the state of nature. Why you would ask how 'natural' selection works in scenarios involving roads and combustion-propelled vessels is beyond me.

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15. Comment #83068 by Vadjong on October 28, 2007 at 8:17 pm

At least it's a higher moral than promising her heaven if only she comes to your church (and hell if she doesn't.)

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16. Comment #83069 by Shuggy on October 28, 2007 at 8:29 pm

Isn't the "give up your seat" meme built on the back of the "respect your elders" meme, which in turn is part of the "old is good" meme by which religion survives?

There is an alternate reason for doing so, based on the Silver Rule, "Don't do as you wouldn't be done by." - "You'll be old some day, and then you'll want to sit down."

I think the "attract a mate" and "please the townsfolk" explanations fail if you'd still do it when they aren't around.



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17. Comment #83071 by Russell Blackford on October 28, 2007 at 9:07 pm

It would be stupid to think that there was an evolutionary advantage to offering places on buses back in the EEA, when buses didn't exist. The question should be, "What is the explanation as to why creatures like us, with our evolved psychology, are motivated to perform acts of kindness?" Once it's phrased that way, it's easy to see why there are numerous explanations, based in our evolved sympathies, in rational self-interest, in social contract thinking, or whatever. We may not be sure exactly which obvious explanation is the true one - or, more likely, which combination of them is best - but there's no mystery.

If the question is, "How did we evolve so as to be the sorts of creatures that flourish by being kind to each other?" then the answer has to be that no one knows the detail, without a time machine, but we have evolved as social and rational beings. There's nothing even superficially odd about such beings having evolved with natural propensities to feel sympathy for others of their kind.

A sense of mystery is created here only by an attempt - either stupid or intellectually dishonest - to saddle philoosophical naturalists with naive views that none of us actually hold.

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18. Comment #83084 by NLN on October 28, 2007 at 10:17 pm

Evolution promotes competition between members of the same species, but also favors species whose members collectively help protect one-another from danger and common enemies.

I suggest that there is an evolutionary advantage for human males to be "nice" to females, since females carry the responsibility of bearing children. A pregnant female is more vulnerable, and since it is not always readily apparent which female is pregnant, being polite to all helps assure the safe status of all our collective offspring.

Although old women can no longer bear children, they certainly contribute to their upbringing. Males may have become conditioned to respond kindly to all women.

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19. Comment #83101 by bucketchemist on October 29, 2007 at 12:25 am

It seems likely to me that this kind of altruistic behaviour, whilst it may have its origins in specific situations of evolutionary advantage, has long been a spandrel, available for application in other situations. The moral sense which underpins this act may have emerged from any social behaviour, or combination of behaviours, which allowed shared genes to flourish, but once that sense is developed it becomes available for general use and for codification in the mores of a society. The particular instance of giving up one's seat on a bus needs no explanation, just the existence of a general individual sense of right and wrong and a social structure which guides that sense in some way. (The necessity of the latter is evidenced by the decline in altruistic behaviour that accompanies social collapse). The same argument could be applied to moral vegetarianism, pacifism, and (maybe) right-to-life campaigning.

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20. Comment #83110 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on October 29, 2007 at 1:19 am

What good is having sex wearing a condom, or indeed masturbation? Same class of question. Simple answer? It feels good. Now you are getting to the meat of the issue. Why does it feel good?

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21. Comment #83119 by jroller on October 29, 2007 at 2:19 am

I think there is a clear evolutionary advantage on offering your place to an old woman on a bus: by doing it you create a pattern of conduct in your society, promoting cooperation. This makes your life safer in the long run, and let you focus on "higher" issues, instead of just defending yourself in a competitive society.

The point in offerng your place to an old woman is in that it increases the total utility of your group: you lose less that she gains, and thus the final result is optimum. As a group, you got an evolutionary advantage at that moment. And humans are evolutionarily social dependent...

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22. Comment #83126 by scooternyc on October 29, 2007 at 2:39 am

"Religion will never give you that which would compel you to give up your seat for an old woman - respect for humanity. Either you would do this action because it is part of your humanity, or you would not."

"No religion or god will give you that which you inherently lack."

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23. Comment #83132 by HughCaldwell on October 29, 2007 at 3:14 am

Children are taught by adults, teachers and parents (or used to be) to show respect for adults. Giving up your seat is one way of showing respect. Is there an evolutionary advantage in showing respect for your elders? Whether there is or not, we can see why elders would put about the idea.

How does it work for the religious? Does a god hiss in their ear, like a child-thrashing parent, and warn them of the consequences of disobedience? This, in any case, would only be the re-inforcement of a principle which had been decided on for other reasons or motives.

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24. Comment #83134 by irate_atheist on October 29, 2007 at 3:24 am

Well, it depends on what revolver she's pointing at you. And, of course, if you feel lucky.

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25. Comment #83141 by IanG on October 29, 2007 at 4:05 am

It seems to me that the answer lies in the long-term consequences of local, point variations occurring in a system that works by descent through heredity with modification.

For no reason other than chance variation, there came into existence one day, an ancestor of ours who just had an inclination or tendency to take care of the elderly in his or her group. This had the entirely unplanned and unintended consequence of prolonging the lifespan of the elderly in the group. This in turn meant that the elderly were more available to care for the young. Incidentally these elderly have more experience at raising young: they've done it before, so they can both do it more cost-effectively in term of energy and time, and they can train new parents, by example. This latter is a heritable meme. This meant both that the young were better looked after, and that the younger adults, the parents, were able to spend more time hunting, gathering, defending or whatever else was their main contribution to the local group, whatever that group may have been.

Over eons of time, this group has, in consequence, a slightly greater, and increasing, tendency to survive and prosper, in comparison with others that do not have this tendency. So this behaviour just happens to happen more and more in the population of this species, in preference to others who don't have the tendency and who now have a tendency towards a niche or extinction.

Then, eons later, we get language and self-reflective capabilities and we wonder about this. Then we get philosophers who invent all sorts of explanations, some quite convincing, based on some supposed, cognitive process of moral and ethical deliberation, that our ancestors went through to work all this out. Alternatively, another bunch says, "God did it." Which explains and answers precisely nothing and just shoves the question one step further down an infinite regress.

The fact is that these are both post-hoc rationalisations.

Once inculcated into our genes, this protectiveness toward the elderly will tend to express itself in any way that is available, including seats on buses.

The same process can be posited for the protection and aiding of the injured or ill, and may be a related behaviour.

Well, that's my take on it anyway!

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26. Comment #83154 by Kris Verburgh on October 29, 2007 at 5:06 am

Humans are an extremely social species, and we obey the unwritten moral laws that were woven into the neural fabricate of our brains during evolution, and even many thousands of years after we left the African savanna, we still can apply those same rules while driving in a city bus, for example.

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27. Comment #83157 by Vaal on October 29, 2007 at 5:30 am

Bonzai

"What is the evolution explanation of gravity".

Did he really just say that? What an imbecile.

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28. Comment #83158 by phasmagigas on October 29, 2007 at 5:35 am

by offering your seat you ultimately increase your selection of female partners, those that see the good act and then those that can know of the good act. The act 'feels' good for the same reason that orgasm and eating feels good the useful act and pleasure go hand in hand to reinforce the act. However......

I think the "attract a mate" and "please the townsfolk" explanations fail if you'd still do it when they aren't around.

a good point but you only give up a seat on a crowded bus anyway!! :) seriously though if you found an old lady hurt on a deserted country lane you would still help her (there are still people who can know of your deed) but id be suprised by any individual who didnt feel even better about it if there were suddenly people appearing and seeing the help first hand. indeed a good deed unseen might make one feel a bit cheated?????? anyway id be suprised if a young male who gave up his seat would prefer to have done it in front of a bus full of men rather than one full of young attractive women.

good deeds tend to lead to reciprocity but thats another story.

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29. Comment #83161 by sbooder on October 29, 2007 at 5:43 am

I just like giving up my seat for an old lady on a bus! You can keep you're in depth analysis of the decision... I am still an atheist and proud of it.

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30. Comment #83177 by Maurizio on October 29, 2007 at 7:34 am

In the ancestral environment in which we have evolved, made of small villages, there was a high probability that the old lady might be your kin, and share some of your genes. Therefore, by helping her, you are helping your own genes.

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31. Comment #83181 by BMMcArdle on October 29, 2007 at 7:55 am

Irrelevent question.
Is it possible that we remember or have it ingrained in ourselves that we were all once completely helpless and utterly hopeless without our mothers or other females whose care and nurturing as infants made for our continued existence?
The nature of childhood teaches us to respect our elders, since we are entirely dependent upon them for our survival as we mature.
The older we get, the more we realize just how much we owe the people who provided for us as we grew.
Then again, maybe she's got a granddaughter/son she can hook you up with!

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32. Comment #83189 by phil rimmer on October 29, 2007 at 8:09 am

Would you stand up for an old man? I do.

In my head, its all about seeing need, I think. My guilty secret is that I like the smile it elicits. It can make me feel good all day.

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33. Comment #83208 by sidfaiwu on October 29, 2007 at 9:17 am

"What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?"

I don't really know. But not knowing does NOT guarantee that God did it. If evolutionary psychology is incorrect, there could be another natural explanation that we have yet to discover.

Side Note:

I've never done much reading on evolutionary psychology, but it seems to me to be a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking, if you'll pardon the American phrase. We know we evolved and we know we have an intuitive moral sense, but have we demonstrated causality? Or are moral psychologists just making up stories that seem to reasonably fit the way we came to be? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks

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34. Comment #83242 by HughCaldwell on October 29, 2007 at 12:10 pm

Incidentally, it's horribly patronising to give up your seat to somebody who is merely old.

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35. Comment #83251 by Steve Crawley on October 29, 2007 at 12:46 pm

Any of the various kinds of brain images (by products of meme inputs) could have triggered his desire to yield a seat to the elderly lady. The lady could have looked like his mother or possibly reminded him of his grandmother. "Be kind to strangers" or "respect your elders" or any other of the many cooperative refrains persisting from his mimetic environment, could have sparked him into action. Or, it could have been an innate response. I doubt it being the latter because his susceptibility to almost indelible meme inputs is what is innate - not each specific behavior. Humans are much more generalized and complex to process such a simple cause and effect innate response. These are usually reserved for the animal kingdom.

Anyway, behavior is difficult to calculate on a one-to-one basis to determine if the behavior is necessarily advantageous for survival. As environment changes and an individual's activities change from time to time, new and different decision may be in order in similar circumstances. To accommodate for these general eventualities that are definitely going to occur in one's life, evolved behavior is much more generalized to accommodate the vast array of decisions that we make. For efficiency's sake, hereditary behavior often piggybacks on the behavior that evolved for possibly a different reason.

For example, quite a few of our advantageous behaviors such as sex benefit from using the dopamine reward system in the brain. Of course, the possible evolutionary disadvantage of this generous approach is that some non-beneficiary behaviors such as a drug overdose takes advantage of the same reward system. This again demonstrates the competing/conflicting nature of our whole make up. Or, to put it another way, the organism that does the best combinations of cost trades, none of which are perfect, survives.

In any case, whether this specific behavior should be considered advantageous for survival is the question. A human whose ancestors have obviously participated in this behavior before, displayed it. He is still here so it must not be a great disadvantage. Assuming that a non-surviving linage of human might have acted differently in this situation, then within the context of roughly comparing, we can speculate that the behavior of the live human is on the positive side :)

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36. Comment #83258 by Americo on October 29, 2007 at 12:58 pm

While I reject the notion that morality comes from some supernatural being, I agree that not every action requires some link to evolutionary advantages. For example, I may see the old lady on the bus as my grandmother and hope that in the same situation another kind person would offer my gradmother a seat. So I do the kind thing. I also refuse to do nasty things because I'm uncomfortable in a setting where nasty behavior is the norm. So, I don't litter, don't kill, don't curse, etc. Nasty behavior begets nasty behavior.Simple as that.

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37. Comment #83260 by phil rimmer on October 29, 2007 at 12:59 pm

Incidentally, it's horribly patronising to give up your seat to somebody who is merely old.

I agree. Its all about sensing distress and offering discretely.

My mother always taught me to stand up for women. Feminists soon cured me of that. And quite rightly.

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38. Comment #83289 by kev_s on October 29, 2007 at 2:05 pm

I once broke down on a very dark and rainy road. While waiting for the AA an old lady who was out walking stopped and asked me if I was OK. Five minutes later an old man stopped and also checked on me.
I wonder what evolutionary drive made them take the risk of approaching an almost invisible man in a dark car?

Perhaps she thought I would one day give her a seat on a bus :-) (I would of course.)
Most people are nice to each because we need to get along.

It's more interesting to inquire about the motivations of those who don't give up a seat when it is needed by someone less fortunate/able. What is "wrong" with them that makes them so selfish?

The religious think we are all naturally evil and it is the evolution of good behaviour that needs explaining. Personally I think it is the bad behaviour that is abnormal.

Top marks to Salisbury, UK for having those really nice people.

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39. Comment #83292 by nunquam on October 29, 2007 at 2:24 pm

I think it's depends on the particular culture. There are some human cultures that might not be so deferential or generous to the elderly or weak (I think the West was one of those cultures only a few hundred years ago). Also, I can imagine many women who might be more sexually interested in a male who wouldn't give up his seat when expected to by society...the notorious "bad boy" who appears more virile because he flouts tradition and rules.

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40. Comment #83378 by nother person on October 29, 2007 at 9:42 pm

It seems to me the best response to this question is,"I'm sure I have no idea. What's your point?"

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41. Comment #83391 by Zakie Chan on October 29, 2007 at 10:24 pm

I don't see why there would have to necessarily be an evolutionary reason. Its just being nice-- empathy.

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42. Comment #83393 by Garnok on October 29, 2007 at 10:26 pm

There are probably a myriad of reasons we could give as to why this is beneficial. As an evolutionary advantage it really isn't one unless you are a member of a social species, which humans are. Even then I wouldn't call it an advantage necessarily. From an evolutionary stand point a show of kindness, genuine or false, might help one increase the chance that they get to reproduce, either by attracting a mate or convincing others to not toss you out so that you live long enough to attract a mate, but that doesn't make it an advantage, just a tactic.

The question seems to be misdirection, a feint by the religious intended to show that we need a god, their god, to be moral (although the morality of offering an old lady your seat on the bus is debatable since kindness does not equal morality).

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43. Comment #83397 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 10:58 pm

Think of it this way -- instincts are rules of thumb that usually work, but that can be subverted on occasion. Think of the Navy survival guide "If it moves, salute it. If it doesn't move, paint it."

Consider nest-parasite birds like cuckoos and cowbirds, which lay their eggs in other birds' nests. When the baby cuckoos and cowbirds hatch, they kick out the other eggs and baby birds, and their unwilling foster parents end up feeding them.

Nesting birds have an instinct that says "feed whatever baby birds are in my nest", which works most of the time, since those baby birds are usually theirs. And since those birds inherit that instinct, it gets passed down to the next generation.

So those birds end up feeding those unwanted foster children.

They are not absolutely vulnerable, of course; they may kick out of the nest any eggs that do not resemble theirs.

So a niceness instinct could emerge in the same way, by kin selection in small and somewhat-inbred groups.

Kin selection is willingness to be self-sacrificing for fellow possessors of one's genes, like one's offspring; it is something that helps those genes persist and be represented in later generations. This is what Richard Dawkins meant by "the selfish gene" -- genes have a tendency to propagate themselves even at the expense of the organisms that contain them.

Aside from kin selection, another source of such niceness is reciprocal altruism; I'll help you out if you help me out. It even helps to be a bit forgiving of small wrongs, because otherwise even the smallest accident would destroy such relationships. But not too forgiving, of course.

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44. Comment #83562 by cryptographix on October 30, 2007 at 12:35 pm

Has anyone watched Dawkins's video called "Nice Guys Finish First"? I think it's about a chapter in that book called that. It seems relevant here.

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45. Comment #83612 by Atticus_of_Amber on October 30, 2007 at 4:02 pm

Some of the responses above seem to me to be making the same error the question does: they miss the distinction between an evolutionary advantage of a behaviour and an evolutionary *explanation* for a behaviour.

What's the evolutionary advantage of helping an old lady on a bus? Probably the same as the evolutionary advantage of having sex with a condom: none. Does that mean there's no evolutionary *explanation* for a teenager having sex wearing a condom? Of course not. The teenager is satisfying an urge and enjoying a pleasure that has been coded into his genome because the genes for sexual lust had a reproductive advantage in most circumstances. He neither knows nor cares that the urge and pleasure are there to get him to procreate. He just wants the pleasure, and uses his rationality to take precautions against what, from his POV, is an unwanted side effect.

Similarly, our evolutionary heritage has given us a lust to be good to others. See my response to the theism and morality thread in debate points for more on this point. Hell, I'll repeat it here:

Where did our moral sense come from? Theists say it can't have evolved, because it often gets us to do things that aren't selfish, even in the sense of enlightened selfishness. This argument misunderstands Dawkins' "selfish gene" point. We are genuinely altruistic because our genes are "selfish". A gene for genuinely altruistic behaviour will have a reproductive advantage if its carriers live in groups of largely related individuals. By risking its life for the group because of the genuine altruism given to it by the gene, one carrier of that gene will increase the reproductive chances of other carriers of the same gene. That is to say, evolution has given us a lust to be good much in the way it has given us a lust to have sex. Does this mean that altruism only makes sense if its for relatives? Only in the sense that sex doesn't "make sense" if its not done for procreation and love doesn't make sense if its not being used to solidify a pair-bond for twenty or so years to best ensure the survival of offspring. The evolutionary explanation for an urge is not the same as a justification for why we should, as rational creatures, promote or fight that urge.

Recent studies on primates have shown the existence of mirror neurones. When a monkey experiences pain from, say, being kicked in the testicles, several neurones can be observed to fire in his brain. But if the same monkey then observes *another* monkey being kicked in the testicles, a few (not all) of those same neurones fire in the *observing* monkey's brain. It seems these neurones evolved as the means by which primates learn skills from each other: observe the other doing the skill, feel which mirror neurones fire, then try to make the same mirror neurones fire by doing the action, repeat, refine, learn skill. But a side effect was the ability to feel the pain and pleasure of others. This new capacity allowed altruism to develop, and that mutation propagated because of the reproduction-enhancing properties of altruism discussed above. However, in gene's-eye perspective, altruism is a two edged sword. It's great if your carriers sacrifice themselves for other carriers, but it sucks if your carriers start sacrificing themselves for non-carriers. The solution is "taming" of the empathy/altruism characteristic be the evolution of in-group vs out-group thinking. What evolved (one suspects both genetically and culturally) was a distinction between the in-group, where empathy was appropriate (and whose members were likely to carry many of the same genes); and out-groups, where empathy was blocked or even turned into its dark twin antipathy – the tendency of animals to feel the pain of others and *enjoy* it.

The story of moral progress is the story of the marriage between the facts of our evolved capacity for empathy and our evolved capacity for reason. As we apply our reason to our urge to be good to others, and as we become more interconnected with strangers, we see fewer and fewer reasons to put people into the "out group". Our psychological "in group" expands and expands until in some people it extends not just to the whole human race, but to sentient animals as well. Of course there are gradations: seeing my fiancée happy gives me more pleasure (and seeing her in pain causes me more suffering) than seeing, say, Richard Dawkins happy (or in pain). And Richard Dawkins' happiness matters more to me that that of George W Bush (though I'd still feel a little bit bad for him if he were in pain). But there are very few people in my "out-group" - and I feel ashamed about the fact that I feel that way even for them.


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46. Comment #83845 by niccodeamus on October 31, 2007 at 1:07 pm

I would hazard that the evolutionary advantage is the same as the explanation in this case. I think that the evolution of "society", basically Nice Guys Finish First, explains this phenomenon. A valuable reason in pre-historic society for preserving the elderly (a massive drain of often scarce resource) must be their acquired knowledge and wisdom. Man is a societal creature, and if behaviour is looked at from a pre-history societal view point, insight can often be gained. So, I suggest that manners and respect for the elderly are altruistic behaviours that benefited the society as a whole by preserving knowledge (and possibly adversely by preserving religion).
Many laws, including laws laid down by religions, seem have their basis in societal behaviours, and I would be prepared to guess that modern laws that favour the individual above society as a whole will eventually be recognised as destructive and repealled

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47. Comment #83947 by Atticus_of_Amber on October 31, 2007 at 6:43 pm

Niccodeamus, I *think* your point only works if you think that there are units of natural selection other than the gene. That would be a controversial proposition, particularly with Professor Dawkins.

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48. Comment #83977 by niccodeamus on November 1, 2007 at 12:11 am

I think Prof Dawkins himself proposed the Meme, but here, only genes need apply. I am not quite clear where you think another unit of selection might be required, but much behaviour is based in the genes, instinct. we are instinctively societal creatures. the selective pressure of that type of behaviour being successful has favoured the genes propagation. In the God Delusion, Prof Dawkins quotes studies that compare the morals of children from different races and religions and find them consistent until religious indoctrination causes deviation. this moral "code" is hard-wired, genetic, and is the base of much of our behaviour. so all i suggest is a reason for being kind and preserving of the elderly and suggest it has an evolutionary benefit and therefore this type of behaviour may be in our "moral genes"

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49. Comment #83980 by Atticus_of_Amber on November 1, 2007 at 12:28 am

My point was that, while I can see a characteristic of respecting tribal elders being of benefit to the tribe, I'm a bit hazy on how genes that coded for such a characteristic would have a reproductive advantage - apart from the advantage obtained by general altruism described above.

I think all you need to answer the question is, first, an understanding of the distinction between an evolutionary advantage of a behaviour and an evolutionary explanation for a propensity to behave in a certain way; and secondly, the standard Selfish Gene evolutionary explanation for altruism.

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50. Comment #84026 by niccodeamus on November 1, 2007 at 3:16 am

This is a flaky website, second go, lost the last long attempt (and only just read the small print to save before posting :-(
I think that society may be a more important driver in evolution that it is given credit for. Altruistic behaviour benefits the individual via strong society, strong societies are more successful than weak. An altruistic behaviour immediately benefits a related tribe, but eventually it becomes standard, were are, after all, all human. The child morality experiments show this nicely.
Taking the elderly issue literally, there are clear benefits in a tribal situation to preserve the elderly (bad choice of words), as they hold the largest amount of acquired knowledge and handed-down information that can be used to benefit the tribe as a whole.
Strong (tribal) societies will expand their populations better than the loose weak societies, and I suggest this is the reproductive advantage.
The disadvantage (in modern times) to this preservation of the elderly, strength of the community, and altruism is the power it hands to memes. If you take religion and slot it into the evolutionary society that humans appear to have developed (or that have developed humans) you have a powerful social tightening effect that could easily have a beneficial population expanding result.
I agree with you last paragraph comment 45, and it still is valid from my view point. Personally, however, I draw the line at GWB

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