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Selfish is An Evolutionary Dead-end
Evolution does not favour selfish people, according to new research.
This challenges a previous theory which suggested it was preferable to put yourself first. Instead, it pays to be co-operative.
The team says their work shows that exhibiting only selfish traits would have made us become extinct.
In the model of “Prisoner’s Dilemma”, each person is offered a deal for freedom if they inform on the other, putting their opponent in jail for six months. However, this scenario will only be played out if the opponent chooses not to inform.
If both “prisoners” choose to inform (defection) they will both get three months in prison, but if they both stay silent (co-operation) they will both only get a jail term of one month.
Co-operating is key for evolution. For many years, people have asked that if he [John Nash, he was the subject of the movie “A Beautiful Mind”] is right, then why do we see co-operation in the animal kingdom, in the microbial world and in humans.
The answer was that communication was not previously taken into account.
The selfish gene?
You might think that natural selection should favour individuals that are exploitative and selfish, but in fact we now know after decades of research that this is an oversimplified view of things, particularly if you take into account the selfish gene feature of evolution.
It’s not individuals that have to survive, its genes, and genes just use individual organisms – animals or humans – as vehicles to propagate themselves.
“Selfish genes” therefore benefit from having co-operative organisms.
via Blogger http://chiropractic-lane.blogspot.com/2013/08/selfish-evolutionary-dead-end.html
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