Runner the religion of yours is just as warped as the religion of ISIS. You should go and read some of the passages in the OT, or look at the history of the Spanish Inquisition for less ancient manifestations of the Christian churches brutality and warped thinking.

David

Hi Folks,
Thanks for the comments and questions. Some brief responses:

LEGO: I'm not arguing against "behaviour being lone gene specific". I am only arguing against the conceptual confusion that arises when we uncritically use a term like "selfishness" which, to me, only makes sense when used of a being which has some ability to choose *at the level at which choices are made."

JP: Genes cooperating. Yes; hoist by my own petard, a bit. I'd defend myself by saying that the "cooperation" is the interaction of genes as the genotype becomes phenotype (a lifelong process) & the environment (epigenetics). I didn't mean to imply a choice in those interactions.

JP: Free will: The behaviour of complex systems, even within the constraints of physico-chemistry on their components, is sufficient to ensure that "intention" and free will" isn't an all or nothing proposition. maybe an article on that when I get some time. Meanwhile see Dennett's Elbow Room, and Freedom Evolves.

Jardine:Your query "Are you saying that, if an act of altruism has an underlying evolutionary rationale and pay-off, it is cheapened, because not ‘pure’ altruism? What are you saying is or may be a category error?" NO! I'm arguing against exactly that which is as you say a category error.

On the rest, the work of including group selection in selection theory has gone beyond kin selection and reciprocity. It's becoming more widely agreed that part of the human selective environment was/is the social group the individual belonged to AND the wider population of groups sharing/competing in the same territory (David Sloane Wilson, etc.). I know Dawkins hates it but it seems more than reasonable to me. On what basis would we exclude these factors from the selective environment? The ability of groups to out-compete rival groups, on this reading, was enhanced by a certain level of self-sacrificing behaviour on behalf of the group's good.

Simon – yes, I would be interested to see your article on free will if you write it. But I wouldn’t bother too much with Dennett. I waded through Elbow Room some years ago for an assignment and as far as I am concerned he didn’t establish his case at all.

Near the end of the book he abandons all appeal to rational argument and simply asserts, “Yes, if we try hard, we can imagine a being that listens to the voice of reason and yet is not exempted from the causal milieu . . . Yes, we can imagine a rational and deterministic being who is not deluded when it views its future as open and ‘up to’ it”. Well that seems pretty delusional to me!

Perhaps you would like to read my OLO article which critiques Sam Harris’s book, “Free Will” http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17152

Surely when talking of genetic/non genetic selfishness in the true sense we can't exclude taking about sociopathic or psychopathic (In the modern context Antisocial personality disorder but this is basically different in definition). These disorders can be nature/nurture in origin. Wikipedia (reference below) states that between 3-30% of all psychiatric outpatients can be classified with the disorder. As the number of psychiatric outpatients are steadily increasing so then is the prevalence of these patients in society. Many of these go without any diagnosis. Society is based on empathy. At what point does society collapse because of a lack of general empathy bred into the population? Laws are of no consequence because socio/psychopathic people disregard laws. I'd love somebody with a good understanding of this write an article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

Just another thought. In specific populations such as prisoners (using the same Wikipedia reference in the last post). Taking prisoner statistics in Australia, male prisoners from 2014 to 2015 has increased by about 4% but female prisoners have increased by 6%. Is this an indicator that this type of disorder in dramatically increasing in the female population? Food for thought.