The Maths Of Morality?

[jim360]

An interesting paper on the mathematics of morality in evolution, as the BBC seemed to put it, appears here:

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130801/ncomms3193/full/ncomms3193.html

The bbc link is here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23529849

I'm in the process of reading the source paper, though don't expect that I'll be able to make that much of it, although I find the method interesting. One of the typical arguments religionists advance is that Science can't do morality, so regardless of whether or not the specific results of this paper are overturned, the very fact that it exists and that there is a valid mathematical approach to analysing morality is worthy of note.

Not sure if it belongs in Science or R&S -- probably both, really, but in R&S it might provoke more discussion.

[LazyGun]

I think, when people reference "The Selfish Gene", they often get a wrong impression of what is meant. For many, the assumption of the title is "The Selfishness Gene", whereas the Selfish gene references the idea of inclusive fitness - the notion that an organism evolves to maximise its inclusive fitness,which is a measure of the total number of offspring, how well it supports its offspring, and how those offspring and resultant communities support each other - This is why the selfish gene in the sense of inclusive fitness leads to social altruistic behaviour, since this kind of behaviour maximises the number of its genes passed on globally.


Dawkins himself has remarked his regret at the title, because of this misconception as a promotion of selfishness; He has said he now wishes he had gone with an alternative title "The Immortal Gene".

As for sexual selection, I really do not think it has been overlooked at all. Birds of Paradise; Peacocks; Lions; All have exaggerated characteristics that are a consequence of sexual selection. And actually, you can find examples in nature of altruistic behaviour by dominant males - a kind of "look, I am so capable at finding food, I can afford to give it to the less fortunate " mentality.

There is a trend toward trying to fit behaviours to genetics - evo/devo. Not very well articulated at the moment, and the evidence to support it is poor.

Overall though, the idea of community, communal pooling of resources, working together as a unit offers the unit as a whole greater success, and with that greater chance of breeding and passing on the genes to a new generation, is seen everywhere in nature, and especially in the primate family.

[mibn2cweus]

'Selfish/ness' is another one of those terms, like 'atheist', that are so arbitrarily defined and burdened with so much baggage as to have been rendered useless as anything other then a derogatory term in an otherwise potentially meaningful discussion. The term 'selfishness' rarely makes the distinction between someone who is acting with rational self-interest and someone who sees others as nothing other than a means to their own end without regard for the other's (or their own) essential human rights.

Rational self-interest is in everyone's best interest, unless you choose to regard the whole of humanity as a race of blood sucking leaches feeding off each other until the ultimate victor, the one that sucks the most, is left to die with no more victims left to feed on. If you wish to have a worthwhile discussion about morality, the place to begin is with a mutual understanding of the virtue of reason as it applies to rational self-interest. Understanding the means and process by which we exist as a rational species in essential to the survival and well-being of any species capable of such discussions apart from which their is no moral imperative, reason nor means for morality to exist at all.

[Old_Geezer]

Just started to read this BBC link (not checked the other one yet) and it seems strange to me.

Evolution does not favour selfish people, according to new research."

Errr.... evolution does not favour individuals at all; it works on the scale of species. Individuals do not evolve.

"This challenges a previous theory which suggested it was preferable to put yourself first."

Hardly. Putting yourself first is a characteristic on how an individual relates within the species they are in. If you are putting yourself first but your species are putting others first then you "win". And it has nothing to do with evolution.

"Instead, it pays to be co-operative,"

No, as an individual it pays to look after you own interests. It pays your species to be co-operative, but since you find yourself in the generation you are in, unless you believe in reincarnation what happens after you are dead and gone is of no benefit to you.

Does this go on in the same vein ? Is it worth reading further ?

[Hypognosis]

@Old_Geezer

//Errr.... evolution does not favour individuals at all; it works on the scale of species. Individuals do not evolve. //

"Individuals do not evolve" is the phrase that I wish teachers would ram home in the classroom.

This is purely from a lexical poit of view. I'm just tired of hearing people saying "I have evolved", regarding the way they conduct their life, when what they mean is that they have developed.

OG, are you saying you haven't read the BBC article all the way to the end?

[jim360]

I'll try to address your comments in greater detail later, OG, but on the particular point:

//"Instead, it pays to be co-operative,"

No, as an individual it pays to look after you own interests...//

This seems to depend on your definition of what it means for something to "pay". Ultimately what this paper, and the whole topic, is about is trying to express the choice between selfish behaviour and not-selfish in terms of game theory. So the definition of "pay" they are using is from that viewpoint -- so that cooperation "pays" if it turns out to be a better game-theory choice than non-cooperation. While you can argue about using this definition, I don't think you can argue about the result, unless you are able to counter their result on these specific terms.

As usual, the problem is one of language. It's not the easiest paper to digest, and I don't know if I can understand and interpret it any better than the BBC's Science editor can. Probably not. But I'm not sure that the results in the paper can be dismissed so easily.

The other thing to say is that (as I understand it) while evolution changes species and not individuals the features of sets of individuals and differences between them are what drive a species forward. So if one set of individuals in a species can be characterised by being called "selfish", and another set is not, then that difference can have consequences for the evolution of the species. So, if altruism is more evolutionarily preferable than selfishness, then you can loosely say that it does "pay" -- in the sense of being more likely for that individual to reproduce -- to be kind.

I don't think I've expressed myself clearly, but hopefully you get the drift. It's about trying to understand how particular behaviours can emerge in a species by considering their benefits to the individual. After all, isn't it the same for all other traits? Polar bears are white because individual bears with white fur were more able to hunt in the polar regions without being detected, so that it "paid" to be a white polar bear. At least, that's the shorthand version, no? While it's certainly more complicated than that, you can loosely describe what was happening in that way.