I was just struck by a thought, which could combine the two approaches, by applying some sort of probability measure to one's acquaintances about how likely they are to become a blood relative of one's descendants. The idea probably needs tweaking, but I don't think I've come across a system quite like it before... Well, at least, not formally. It seems plausible that a number of social systems have ended up applying something like such a heuristic through informal social-evolutionary adaptation, which could provide some fodder for contrasting the Bayesian version against the historically-evolved versions.
Anyone have any suggestions on elaborations?
Sounds somewhat like the 'gay uncle' theory, where having 4 of your siblings kids pass on their genes is equivalent to having 2 of your own pass on their genes, but with future pairings included, which is interesting.
Stephen Baxter wrote a couple of novels that explored the first theory a bit Destiny's Children series, where gur pbybal riraghnyyl ribyirq vagb n uvir, jvgu rirelbar fhccbegvat n tebhc bs dhrraf gung gurl jrer eryngrq gb.
The addition of future contributors to the bloodline as part of your utility function could make this really interesting ...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.