Darwin não explica o altruísmo e esta história já está fedendo

THE IDEA THAT EVOLUTION EXPLAINS SELFISHNESS WELL AND ALTRUISM POORLY IS STARTING TO STINK. CAN WE PLEASE BURY IT NOW?

Altruism vs. Selfishness
COMMENT / BY DAVID SLOAN WILSON / SEPTEMBER 26, 2009

The conflict between altruism and selfishness, good and evil, is an eternal theme in religion and literature. It also threatens to be an eternal controversy in evolutionary theory. Eric Michael Johnson’s review of Frans de Waal’s latest book emphasizes empathy and cooperation’s role in evolution, so as one of the original proponents of group selection theory, I’d like to use it in making some general points on where this debate currently stands.

Selfish genes don’t mean selfish individuals.

Regardless of what Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling may have thought, selfish gene theory does not predict that individuals are invariably selfish. Richard Dawkins has repeatedly made this point and his rowing crew metaphor illustrates the idea of selfish genes pulling together to collectively survive and reproduce. On the other hand, Dawkins is frankly inconsistent on this subject, frequently implying that it is a dog-eat-dog world at the individual level after all. One of my own blogposts titled “What do selfish genes, and memes, really mean?” addresses this inconsistency.
Cooperation is a real theory.

It’s a stretch to say that Peter Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid had to wait more than 100 to be reexamined. There have always been theories of cooperation, which tended to be uncritically accepted during the first half of the 20th century, uncritically rejected during the second half, and now—with luck—are maturing into a consensus that won’t swing back and forth like a frictionless pendulum.

Evolution helps explain all behaviors.

The idea that evolution explains selfishness well and altruism poorly is so dead that it is beginning to smell. Can we please bury it now? Evolution explains the full range of behaviors, from extreme selfishness to extreme altruism. What evolves in any particular case depends upon the underlying environmental conditions, which are fairly well specified by now. No one should be surprised anymore by the raw fact that kindness exists in nature. The frontier of science has moved on to a more refined set of questions.

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