Re: Hamilton's rule

in article dlst6p$27hg$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Catherine Woodgold at
an588@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 11/21/05 8:38 AM:

> Guy Hoelzer (hoelzer@xxxxxxx) writes:
>> Here I think you have contradicted yourself. While you have been convincing
>> me of the validity of your argument along the way, that same argument
>> persuades me that your last point is false. A largely altruistic population
>> would be quite vulnerable to invasion and persistence of low frequencies of
>> alleles for selfish behavior. If what you meant was that the largely
>> altruistic population is unlikely to be replaced by a regime of selfishness,
>> then I would agree.
>
> Invasion does happen under certain circumstances.
> However, I think under the conditions (ratio
> between b and c, etc.) under which a rare altruistic
> gene would tend to spread, then a rare non-altruistic
> gene in an altruistic population would tend to
> die out at about the same rate.

I agree. However, such tendencies get overwhelmed when dealing with small
sample sizes. My comment above explicitly referred to the maintenance of a
selfishness load in a population of altruists.

Guy


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Hamiltons rule
    ... > alleles for selfish behavior. ... > altruistic population is unlikely to be replaced by a regime of selfishness, ... Invasion does happen under certain circumstances. ... gene would tend to spread, ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Hamiltons rule
    ... Catherine Woodgold wrote: ... >> altruistic population is unlikely to be replaced by a regime of selfishness, ... I see no contradiction. ... Groups that can't deal with invasion will be ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
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