Comments

1
I like that you managed grund but followed it with "alturism", closing with a blurry photo of your bedside heap. One of your classics.
2
You mean altruism, right?

Interesting notion. A lot of cognitive psychologists have been playing around with the idea that action precedes intention; that is, that instead of thinking to yourself "I'm going to move my arm" and subsequently moving it, that instead you move your arm first and then have the thought that you want to move it. Sort of an elementary-level self justification effect.
3
Wilson is smart, I don't know about smarter.
Also, remember what happened to Lynn Margulis...
4
You give people too much credit. An ant, for example, doesn't take a machine gun and murder innocent people. And while there are those that cooperate and even care, it hardly accounts for all those that don't. Some people don't even care about their own children.
5
"acts in ways that benefit others in its colony more than itself"

How can you tell? Would the ant make it without a colony?
6
@1 And precedes it with "altrurism".
7
Thanks for the tip on a fascinating story Paul.
8
Ummm I think Wilson's critics on his stance on this have more substantive concerns, such as a) Wilson's willingness to disregard kin selections' successes rather than expanding or modifying the theory to include the phenomena it does not explain, and b) Wilson's failure to adequately respond to critiques of his latest paper.

Check out this for more from a peer of Wilson's: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/…
9
By which I mean: This link here.
10
Oh, god(s). A psuedo-intellectual debate has broken out between the 'smartest man from Zimbabwe' and the nine people who think he isn't throwing his own shit against the wall.
11
BetarayBilly! Slog's cheerleader!

I still remember that time you told that depressed case in the Savage Love Letter of the Day to quit being a burden on society and kill himself already. That was a classic.
12
There may be more to life than the transmission of genes, but there is really not more to evolution I am afraid. One would have to argue how altruism could survive the constant genetic winnowing if it did not have an immediate and real survival value.

One has to ask how this one thing that is so important to humanity's need to see itself as completely detached from other animals is somehow the only adaptation that could exist without initial survival value. Seems like the hypothesis is more hopeful than factual.

I also just have to ask Charles, how does a photo of all the books you have on your bed inform or improve your post here? We already know you read a lot my friend, we do not need photographic evidence.

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