Altruism, Selfishness, Spite and Mutualism

By William Mullen | Tribune staff reporter
August 3, 2007
Chimpanzees may be the closest cousins there are to human beings, with the
two species sharing 98 percent of the same DNA, but a group of researchers
in Germany recently reported one big and perhaps humbling difference between
the two: The apes aren't nearly as nasty and mean-spirited as people are.
"Spitefulness may be a peculiarly human trait," said Keith Jensen, a
Canadian evolutionary biologist who has been looking to see whether human
concepts like fairness and punishment are present in the social organization
of another highly socialized species. In a paper published last month in the
U.S. research publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
Jensen and two colleagues state that chimps are vengeful but not spiteful.
To ferret out the difference, the researchers placed chimps in two facing
cages spaced 3 feet apart, with snacks piled on a narrow, wheeled table
between them. One chimp could pull on a rope to bring the table close enough
to get the food. But the rope in the other cage allowed the second chimp to
collapse the table and spill the food on the floor so neither could reach
it. After the chimps were familiar with the arrangement, the researchers set
up two scenarios.
In one, the table was set up close to the chimp with the power to collapse
the table -- close enough for the animal to eat the snacks. Invariably,
however, the second chimp would "steal" the table by pulling it to the other
side."That usually would enrage the chimps who lost the food," said Jensen,
and the victimized chimp would punish the thief by collapsing the table and
scattering the food out of reach. Labeling this behavior as vengeance, the
authors said it is a positive action in building social relationships
because it punishes negative behavior and fosters cooperation that benefits
the larger society. In the second scenario, a human being would take away
one chimp's snacks and give them to the other. In this case, the first chimp
could have spitefully pulled the rope so the second chimp could not have the
snacks, either -- but it did not."Spite is kind of interesting, because it
is altruism's evil twin," Jensen said. "Humans can care about making
somebody feel better, but we also have the darker side of sometimes wanting
to make somebody feel worse."Because chimps are closely related genetically
to human beings, scientists increasingly are studying their behavior for
clues to the origins of human behavior."How did these behaviors that we
think of as human evolve?" asked Jensen. "Or did they evolve? If they did
evolve, they would have had to have shown up somewhere else than just in the
human record."One of the big issues in his field, said Jensen, is
determining whether any species other than human beings share the sense of
empathy. "Some people say only humans have a sense of knowing how others
feel," he said, "but other authors disagree, saying they can see it in other
animals, particularly other animals like chimps."That seems to be borne out
in chimp studies. For example, if a chimp realizes a human researcher wants
an object just out of his physical reach, the animal routinely will retrieve
the object and hand it over."Related to this issue is fairness, comparing
your gains and losses to another guy's," Jensen said. "Some theorists,
particularly economists, feel the sense of fairness is unique to humans and
is a key component to how we cooperate. 'I have a piece of pie, and yours is
bigger' -- humans are sensitive to these sorts of disparities, but there is
a lively debate if chimps have that sort of sensitivity."Said Jensen: "This
kind of research is interesting because it makes us [humans] look at
ourselves more closely."

JE:-
It seems to me the human researcher would be viewed by the chimp as a
dominant member of the chimp's group so a smart chimp could not risk
crossing the researcher

It appears that at no time has anybody even considered that these behaviours
are not "altruistic", "selfish", "spiteful" or "vengeful", but simply,
emotions pushing towards increased _fitness mutualisation_. Altruism as an
action can only mean a +/- fitness relationship (gain to a loss) while
selfish as an action is just the relative opposite of this: -/+ (loss to a
gain association). Neither are stable actions . This only leaves -/-
(loss/loss association) as utterly pointless action and +/+ (win/win
association) as the only stable action (fitness mutualised). No other action
combinations exist! I propose that "selfishness" and "altruism" are
emotions and NOT actions which provide a zig zag direction towards increased
fitness mutualisation (+/+). I also propose that the (-/-) fitness
association can never be selected for but if it was, this mutually negative
association would refute Darwinism . "Spite" and "vengeance" remain, but
only as emotions which push towards increasing (+/+), i.e. they are NOT
actions. More important that just about anything else, unless a constant
fitness frame of reference is supplied +/- cannot differentiated from -/+ as
actions. Hamilton's Rule, on which these things remain based, has _no
constant fitness frame of reference_. Why do Neo Darwinists insist on
deploying just pre Galilean reasoning?

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


.

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