As to mutations, Darwin would have had a happier death (though he was content enough when it came) if he had known of the researches of Gregor Mendel, the obscure Moravian friar who had been carrying out the most extensive and detailed research in the garden of his friary into the inherited characteristics of runner beans, antirrhimuns, hawkweed and, above all, peas. He died -- though without the glory and honour that Darwin received -- only a couple of years later. But it was Mendel's researches, rather than Darwin's work (and that of his contemporary discoverer, Wallace) that was largely responsible for the revival of the theory of evolution that had been largely slumbering for half a century since Darwin had died.
It was not until Mendel's papers were unearthed in an obscure journal in the 1920s and mulled over that biologists realised that Mendel had discovered the momentous fact that something quite tangible and specific was being passed on from one generation to another in accounting for why peas, for example, were green or yellow, wrinkled or smooth, tall or short. From then onwards, scientific investigation into what became known as genes gathered pace. However, although genetic investigation began to successfully explain physiological facts and hinted at genes that were responsible for behaviour, several of Darwin's conundrums remained unanswered until the 60s and 70s.
The most brilliant of these later biologists looking into paradoxical behaviour was William Hamilton. He puzzled for years over the matter that, if natural selection favours the survival of the fittest, why do some individuals sacrifice themselves for the good of the group or others? Evolution should produce selfish, not altruistic, individuals. As Darwin had observed, the extreme cooperation seen in colonies of bees and ants made no sense from an evolutionary standpoint. The answer, according to Hamilton, was genetic relatedness. If one individual shared a large number of genes with another, particular of several others, then, from the genes' point of view it made sense for one individual to be sacrificed for the good of others.
This was a breakthrough of the most enormous significance and Hamilton, who died only in 2000, had completely revolutionised the whole study of the genetic sociology of many species, including man. This was the reason why sociobiology, as the sub-discipline was known originally, came under such bitter attack by conventional sociologists of the anecdotal, rather than scientific, school. However, once sociology was cleverly re-branded as "evolutionary psychology" and supported by an ever growing body of scientific evidence, then the subject has been left in peace.
The matter of fairness, hitherto regarded as another of the great human virtues, is now also shown to have a genetic basis, as the article below relates. From the behaviour of fairness and sharing, as described below, then the act of trading among and between hominids species is but a short step. Quite what is traded falls within the subject of economics. However, quite why things are traded is indisputably within the subject of evolutionary theory from now onwards. It is nothing to do with greed or exploitation or politics; It is, quite simply, natural and beneficial
<<<< GENETIC BASIS TO FAIRNESS, STUDY HINTS
Nicholas Wade
Two researchers at Emory University, Dr. Sarah F. Brosnan and Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal, report today in the journal Nature that they taught female capuchin monkeys to trade pebbles for pieces of food. The capuchins were caged in pairs, so that each member of a pair could see the other. If one monkey got a grape in return for her pebble but the other only a less desired piece of cucumber, the shortchanged monkey would often refuse to hand over the pebble in exchange or might decline to eat the cucumber both very unusual behaviors.
These refusals were often accompanied by emphatic body language, like dashing the pebble or the cucumber on the floor, Dr. Brosnan said. The expressions of exasperation were twice as common if the monkey offered a cucumber saw her companion being given a grape without even having to hand over a pebble. The behavior suggests that the monkeys have a sense of fair treatment and respond negatively when their expectations are violated, the researchers say.
The finding bears on the question of whether the sense of fairness found in all human societies is learned from school and family or is instead an innate behavior fostered by the genes. "The fact that we find the sense of fairness in a nonhuman primate implies it is an evolved behavior and has a good benefit," Dr. Brosnan said. Protesting unfair treatment of oneself, in other words, probably has a genetic basis in capuchins and so presumably in all social primates, including people.
The food experiment was not conducted in male capuchins, Dr. Brosnan said, because they tend to share food with everyone, whereas females are more discriminate, sharing only with those who share with them. The reason stems from the structure of capuchin society, which is based on a harem system. A male shares food freely because everyone around is either a sexual partner or a child he has fathered. Females within a harem have no such incentive and evidently measure out their favors on a basis of reciprocity.
The monkey research is part of a long-term effort by evolutionary biologists to understand the genetic basis of social behavior. Selfishness might seem the best way for an individual to get the most genes into the next generation, evolution's only coin of success. But biologists have come to understand how cooperative behavior, under certain definable conditions, can have a greater genetic payoff and therefore how genes that foster such behavior could be favored by evolution.
The sense of fairness discovered in the capuchin monkeys seems to be another aspect of the innate primate repertory of social behaviors.
New York Times 18 September 2003 >>>>
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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