WTF Betty Sue? If evolution is real, why is murder illegal?

[emmiedahl]

Every insect belonging to Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps) exhibits self-sacrificial eusocial behavior and there are great evolutionary treatises on why this evolved. I typed in eusociality and this came up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality. Apparently a lot of insects act this way. That is why you know when you see a single termite that you have a huge freaking problem.

You can see both protective and helpful behavior in almost all mammals. Why did I have huge Rottweilers when I was a single mom? Because they made me feel safe. They would have ripped to shreds anyone who tried to hurt my child or I. Dog specialists say this is because they view their human family as members of their pack.

eta: for the science nerds out there, even microbes show social behavior in some situations. So it is a behavior that potentially goes back to our early days, if you are an eebil evolutionist. http://www.sfu.ca/biology/faculty/cresp ... EE2001.pdf

[wtylcf]

I'm not going to exert myself. I'll just quote Wikipedia!

Emphasis mine. Altruism, like homosexuality, is well-documented among animals.

They give a few examples.

I'm reading Bill Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything right now and one example of cooperation he cites is slime mold. It's neither animal nor plant, but is comprised of single celled micro-organisms. When times are tough and the organisms can't get enough food, they somehow combine themselves into a slug-like creature, which wiggles up someplace high, then dies while a fruiting body sprouts from it. This releases spores which are carried away in the air, once again becoming individual celled organisms. All the existing organisms die in the process. Even slime mold can be altruistic, although they don't have anything like a brain!

The science radio show Radiolab has a great show on alturism (mostly in humans) called The Good Show that provides an interesting take on the scientific reasons altruism has helped humanity.

[kb2]

* It's not quite true that cats aren't social animals. They aren't pack or herd creatures, but that doesn't mean social ties don't exist for them. Colonies, groups of feral or semi-feral cats that live together, often consist of relatives, the mostly-female descendents of one mother, but they don't *have* to. Helping your sister's kittens live is helping yourself in a way, because it increases the odds of your genes being passed on even if none of your own survive. Helping a stranger's kitten that found its way into your group is entirely different.

That's interesting. My last apartment had a lot of feral cats, including a female cat who had two litters while I was living there (she housed them all in the bushes under my bedroom window half the time). She, a male cat from the first litter, and an unknown-gendered cat from the second litter hung around after they were all adults (my neighbor fed them), while the other kittens scattered after they reached a certain age. They were clearly friends because they would sleep on top of each other. I always wondered how they decided to stick around when the others left.

[fluttershies]

We have a pair of blackbirds that visit our garden regularly when they have babies, and when their fledglings were more mobile they would all come as a family to the main feeder in the garden. The fat balls were very popular with them but also with the local jackdaws, and the male blackbird was VERY aggressive in chasing away the jackdaws. European robins are also very territorial and protect their young fiercely.

[CanadianHippie]

Emperor penguins. One parent stays behind to keep the egg/baby warm and safe while the other heads out to eat and get food for the baby. They switch up, when one returns the other heads out, but it requires them to voluntarily go without food for an extended period of time.

In fact... Lots of animals (mostly mammals) will sacrifice for the good of the young so the species survives into the next generation.

[B5SnowDog]

Rats are altruistic. Jailbreak Rat: Selfless Rodents Spring Their Pals and Share Their Sweets

[BelieveinScience]

Vampire bats practice reciprocal altruism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism