Fairytale Evolution: the Memes of Little Red Riding Hood

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Robert Dephillips September 7, 2012 Fairytale Evolution: The Memes of “Little Red Riding Hood” Since the early 1960’s, biologists have resolved many inconsistencies and paradoxes in their approach to evolution and have now accepted a new perspective. Notions of group selection, or “for the good of the species” views of evolution, have always been popular misconceptions (among countless others). The paradoxical logic of group selection is readily apparent: anyone cheating the system benefits from the altruism of others while bearing none of the costs; their successful, deviant behavior is passed down to their offspring, and the system collapses. Altruism nonetheless exists in nature (indeed, it is no accident that humans think in terms of “for the good of the species”) and W.D. Hamilton and Robert Trivers solved the problem under two specific circumstances. Hamilton proved that genes for altruism can spread provided that there is a high probability of the recipient sharing the same such gene, i.e., closely related individuals. His theory is known as kin selection, while Trivers’ theory of reciprocal altruism applies to unrelated individuals, even ones from different species. Reciprocal altruism theory tells us that in any environment where the benefits of cooperation outweigh the cost, natural selection will favor genes for altruistic behavior; one example is cleaner fish, where tiny fish pick away at the food caught in the teeth of a carnivore’s gaping mouth: the benefits of clean teeth outweigh the costs of making a meal of the cleaner fish and risking gum disease and rot (humans really must find a cleaner species to replace the arduous task of teethbrushing). Ultimately, Trivers and Hamilton forced biologists to accept that prior notions of group selection, and even the theory of individual selection in Darwinism, were confusing the unit of
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