Re: The Cost of Selfishness Is Reduced Mutualism and Not Altruism
- From: an588@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Catherine Woodgold)
- Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 11:32:00 -0500 (EST)
"John Edser" (edser@xxxxxxxxxx) quoted:
> "...The researchers presented captive chimps with a device that gave them a
> choice between two options. The chimp could choose to serve only itself with
> food, or it could select an option that gave it the same food, but also
> resulted in food being delivered to another chimpanzee.
>
> The chimpanzees were no more likely to choose the second option, even though
> they could see that it would help a friend at no inconvenience to
> themselves, the researchers said."
Maybe they were more likely to give the other chimp food
if they knew the other chimp to be more closely related
to themselves than the average chimp in the local group,
and more likely to prefer not to give the other chimp
food if they supposed the other chimp to be less
closely related to themselves than the average chimp
in the local group. (Something like this could perhaps
be predicted from the equations I worked out for
Hamilton's rule in small populations, though it
wouldn't necessarily generalize to behaviour in
situations that had never been presented to the chimps
during their evolution.)
--
Cathy Woodgold
http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html
We are all Iraqis now.
.
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- The Cost of Selfishness Is Reduced Mutualism and Not Altruism
- From: John Edser
- The Cost of Selfishness Is Reduced Mutualism and Not Altruism
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