Inclusive fitness
 

Hi folks,

I thought I'd raise the issue of inclusive fitness - I mentioned it earlier on Mystery's forum (as he was the culprit).

I've listened to some of Mystery's evolutionary talk regarding the necessity of attracting women. This was given at some kind of seminar, and I would imagine that quite a few people have heard it.

I’ve worked in this field for a while, and so would like to add a point to this – if you are like me, this might change the way you see the world.

Inclusive fitness - this changes everything. Situation A: a homosexual priest and a straight, active, and successful PUA. Normal intuition would suggest that the PUA is being more successful in evolutionary terms, as they are more likely to reproduce. But this isn't entirely the case, as natural selection acts on genes, not individuals. If the priest leads an active life in the community, and he helps many people, his actions are likely to help others reproduce; these people are likely to share his genes, so by helping them, he is helping his own genes reproduce.

The PUA on the other hand is more likely to ejaculate into a condom, and - if he helps other people out less - he has a lower inclusive fitness.

Of course I’ve made a number of assumptions here, but they should at least illustrate the point.

Inclusive fitness explains much of the evolution of society and altruism. As you would imagine, there are some excellent resources out there, and a simple search on the internet will bring about a wealth of information.

Who knows, this might influence how we see other people – a disabled, homosexual man is not a ‘lesser’ being in evolutionary terms – they may in fact be out-competing Mystery and Style et al…

Cheers

Anthony

Here's some answers from an excerpt on Evolution from the Waking Life (epic film).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saxX-Z6w3p4&fmt=18

"And what is interesting here is that evolution now becomes an individually centered process, emanating from the needs and desires of the individual, and not an external process, a passive process where the individual is just at the whim of the collective. So, you produce a neo-human, okay, with a new individuality and a new consciousness. But that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new intelligence. As intelligence piles on intelligence, as ability piles on ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until we reach a crescendo in a way could be imagined as an enormous instantaneous fulfillment of human, human and neo-human potential. It could be something totally different. It could be the amplification of the individual, the multiplication of individual existences. Parallel existences now with the individual no longer restricted by time and space.
And the manifestations of this neo-human-type evolution, manifestations could be dramatically counter-intuitive. That's the interesting part. The old evolution is cold. It's sterile. It's efficient, okay? And its manifestations of those social adaptations. We're talking about parasitism, dominance, morality, okay? Uh, war, predation, these would be subject to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty, of justice, of freedom. These will be the manifestations of the new evolution. And that is what we would hope to see from this. That would be nice."

Sounds more like Memes and memetics than Genes if you familiar with Richards Dawkins work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetic

Yea - memes are really interesting. Inclusive fitness is based on genes though, so in this example the priest could well be helping his own genes pass on. His memes could also be passed on – there probably is gene / meme overlap.

Dawkins did some interesting work / writing about genes - he was the one who publicised the idea of natural selection acting on genes. He is also a person I would consider very lucky – an interesting and well-paid job. That said, I would say that an ‘X’ proportion of life is down to luck, up to us to change the rest. With that in mind I am out sarging tonight!!

Cheers

Anthony

You never really 'know' - everything is a bit of a gamble. Even with someone you seduce and mate with, there is always a risk of cuckoldry.

That said, you can be pretty sure that putting your genetic material into a condom is a bit of a dead end.

"I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins” (Haldane)– ie, 100% of my genes.

We evolved the pursuit of sexual activity to pass on our genes - people who enjoyed this tended to pass on their genes, and evolution selected them. Now, following the same urges, we do what evolution has programmed us to do. But because of contraception, I sometimes see it as a bit of a dead-end.

That said, all this thinking aside – we are now in a situation where we enjoy doing something, with little cost. ‘If it feels good, do it!’

I find it interesting, but at times a little strange.

Women have evolved differently, with a huge cost to sex – 9 months of pregnancy, the risk of childbirth, and a child. They are understandably more cautious when choosing a partner.

I’ll keep an eye out for some of the cool stuff I remember (can’t find some studies I really like at the minute). Here seems to be a nice introduction to a few interesting themes:

http://bio.kuleuven.be/ento/courses/...%20systems.ppt


Anthony