Science need not be dull and bogged down by jargon, as Richard Dawkins proves in this entertaining look at evolution. The themes he takes up are the concepts of altruistic and selfish behaviour; the genetical definition of selfish interest; the evolution of aggressive behaviour; kinship theory; sex ratio theory; reciprocal altruism; deceit; and the natural selection of sex differences. Readership: general; students of biology, zoology, animal behaviour, psychology.

The Selfish Gene

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/197/4300/215.full.pdf

Ecology, sexual selection, and the evolution of mating systems

Cooperation is needed for evolution to construct new levels of organization. Genomes, cells, multicellular organisms, social insects, and human society are all based on cooperation. Cooperation means that selfish replicators forgo some of their reproductive potential to help one another. But natural selection implies competition and therefore opposes cooperation unless a specific mechanism is at work. Here I discuss five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation: kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, and group selection. For each mechanism, a simple rule is derived that specifies whether natural selection can lead to cooperation.

/pdf/five-rules-for-the-evolution-of-cooperation-2bpocasc6i.pdf

Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation

Human cooperation is an evolutionary puzzle. Unlike other creatures, people frequently cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers, often in large groups, with people they will never meet again, and when reputation gains are small or absent. These patterns of cooperation cannot be explained by the nepotistic motives associated with the evolutionary theory of kin selection and the selfish motives associated with signalling theory or the theory of reciprocal altruism. Here we show experimentally that the altruistic punishment of defectors is a key motive for the explanation of cooperation. Altruistic punishment means that individuals punish, although the punishment is costly for them and yields no material gain. We show that cooperation flourishes if altruistic punishment is possible, and breaks down if it is ruled out. The evidence indicates that negative emotions towards defectors are the proximate mechanism behind altruistic punishment. These results suggest that future study of the evolution of human cooperation should include a strong focus on explaining altruistic punishment.

/pdf/altruistic-punishment-in-humans-4yytzjzmsy.pdf

Altruistic punishment in humans.

Sperm competition and its evolutionary consequences in the insects

Despite wide acceptance that the attributes of living creatures have appeared through a cumulative evolutionary process guided chiefly by natural selection, many human activities have seemed analytically inaccessible through such an approach. Prominent evolutionary biologists, for example, have described morality as contrary to the direction of biological evolution, and moral philosophers rarely regard evolution as relevant to their discussions. "The Biology of Moral Systems" adopts the position that moral questions arise out of conflicts of interest, and that moral systems are ways of using confluences of interest at lower levels of social organization to deal with conflicts of interest at higher levels. Moral systems are described as systems of indirect reciprocity: humans gain and lose socially and reproductively not only by direct transactions, but also by the reputations they gain from the everyday flow of social interactions. The author develops a general theory of human interests, using senescence and effort theory from biology, to help analyze the patterning of human lifetimes. He argues that the ultimate interests of humans are reproductive, and that the concept of morality has arisen within groups because of its contribution to unity in the context, ultimately, of success in intergroup competition. He contends that morality is not easily relatable to universals, and he carries this argument into a discussion of what he calls the greatest of all moral problems, the nuclear arms race. "Crammed with sage observations on moral dilemmas and many reasons why an understanding of evolution based on natural selection will advance thinking in finding practical solutions to our most difficult social problems." U "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences" "Richard D. Alexander" is Donald Ward Tinkle Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, and Curator of Insects, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan. A recipient of numerous awards, Dr. Alexander is the author of "Darwinism and Human Affairs."

The biology of moral systems

The Biology of Moral Systems

Darwinism and human affairs

Most contacts between adult male field crickets involve aggressive behavior by one or both individuals and terminate with the obvious retreat of one individual. Aggressive behavior consists of one or more of several actions: in mild encounters there is either rearing of the forebody, lashing of the antennae, and shaking of the body, or else rearing of the hind body, kicking with the hind legs, and shaking of the body; in intense encounters, antennal lashing and rearing of the forebody are followed by spreading the mandibles, stridulating distinctively, rushing forward, sparring with the forelegs, butting with the head, and grappling, wrestling, or biting with the mandibles. A male is often flipped back or thrown sideways, but mutilation as a result of fighting is rare, and only in the most intense encounters is the winner determined by what seems to be superior strength or fighting ability. The outcomes of most encounters are determined by the relative tenacity of the two males, and the intensity of aggression exhibited is correlated with the length of the fight, continued aggressive activity developing into increasingly severe combat until one male finally retreats. Groups of adult male field crickets caged in small arenas form essentially linear dominance hierarchies which are stable for short periods of time and which can be described in terms of several characteristics: (1) each male dominates all or nearly all of his encounters with males below him in the hierarchy, (2) the total number of encounters by individual males decreases gradually toward the bottom of the hierarchy, (3) the intensity of aggression exhibited during encounters decreases more or less gradually toward the bottom of the hierarchy and the numbers of no-decision and no-aggression encounters and actively homosexual contacts increase, and (4) encounters between males which rank next to each other are usually more intense than encounters between males which are far apart in the hierarchy.

Aggressiveness, Territoriality, and Sexual Behavior in Field Crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllidae)

This volume brings together more than a decade of information collected in the field and lab on the naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber), a northeast African mammal unique for its physical characteristics and eusociality. Nearly blind and virtually hairless, naked mole-rats inhabit large subterranean colonies in which only one female and her one to three mates conceive offspring, while the young from previous litters maintain and defend the group as do workers in colonies of the social insects. In this first major treatise on naked mole-rats an international group of researchers covers such topics as the evolution of eusociality, phylogeny and systematics of the rodent family Bathyergidae, population and behavioral ecology and genetics of naked mole-rats in the field, vocal and nonvocal behaviors, social organization and divisions of labor within colonies, and climatic, social, and physiological factors affecting growth, reproduction, and reproductive suppression.In addition to the editors, the contributors are D. H. Abbott, M. W. Allard, N. C. Bennett, R. A. Brett, S. H. Braude, B. Crespi, S. V. Edwards, C. G. Faulkes, L. M. George, R. L. Honeycutt, E. A. Lacey, C. E. Liddell, E. McDaid, K. Nelson, K. M. Noonan, J. O'Riain, J. W. Pepper, H. K. Reeve, and D. A. Schlitter.

Richard D. Alexander

Papers

The biology of moral systems

The Biology of Moral Systems

Darwinism and human affairs

Aggressiveness, Territoriality, and Sexual Behavior in Field Crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllidae)

The Biology of the Naked Mole-Rat