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Viliam comments on Open Thread May 30 - June 5, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Elo 30 May 2016 04:51AM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 01 June 2016 08:47:36PM -1 points [-]

Or imagine that you are literally the first organism who by random mutation achieved a gene for "helping your siblings"

That's not how genes work. There isn't a single gene for "helping your siblings".

Imagine that you are literally the first organism who by random mutation achieved a gene for "helping those who help you". How specifically does this gene increase your fitness, if there is no one else to reciprocate?

Genes don't need to help the individual that carries it. Genes are as Richard Dawkins famously said selfish.

Comment author: Viliam 02 June 2016 08:04:50AM *  0 points [-]

Genes don't need to help the individual that carries it.

Technically true, but irrelevant in the scenario when there is yet only one organism having the gene. Kill the organism and the gene is gone.

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 June 2016 08:14:00AM *  4 points [-]

It doesn't make sense to focus on only one organism. Natural selection is a stochastic process. Genes that don't help the only organism that carry it get doublicated all the time.

A random gene on the Y chromosome of Genghis Khan that didn't have strong effects would now be carried by millions of people without the gene being responsible for it.

Comment author: Romashka 02 June 2016 05:22:46PM 1 point [-]

BTW, I was just browsing JSTOR and saw this: Life history, habitat saturation and the evolution of fecundity and survival altruism. S. Lion and S. Gandon, Evolution, v. 64 n. 6 (2010), pp. 1594-1606. If you would like to, I could relate the substance (it is a tiny bit inconvenient for me to do right now, or I would have.)

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