Talk:Altruism (biology)

Kamuniak
To me the mention of this lion seems out of place within the section. the other examples are very general and then this one is specific. I suggest removal, or perhaps a new section like "Specific examples" or something to that effect. Gritironskillet 03:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Checking facts
May I suggest that the author of this page puts his preconceived ideas away. He should particularly note Williams Revolution, group selection, evolutionary game theory hawk-dove game, prisoner's dilemma and learn some natural history. Dunc|&#9786; 21:20, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh and Hamilton's rule, kin selection and inclusive fitness. Dunc|&#9786; 21:22, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * See also naturalistic fallacy. Dunc|&#9786; 21:35, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Although censoring me is one option, I'll request peer review. Dunc|&#9786; 00:34, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What bothers me about this page is that I'm not at all sure the current content is substantially different than the evolutionary section on the Altruism page. It is also not a standard terminology in the slightest -- aside from being grammatically questionable, a Google search for the term only shows up pages in Wikipedia, its mirrors, or other wikis. Looking to animal behavior for signs of evolutionary ethics is a much wider endeavor than this page indicates; and to really fill it out would only duplicate content which ought to be on sociobiology. A page on evolutionary ethics could be interesting if done well, though again it would duplicate a lot of work in the other articles, and would probably have to be done from a historical perspective (what various scientists have speculated, over time, about this subject, from Darwin to the present). I don't think the page does a lot of harm at the moment, though, even though it is very incomplete. ---Fastfission 05:02, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pleasant Article
Would that we humans were more like toward each other.


 * Some do, just as some animals don't. Also note that almost all of the examples seem to be of reciprocative-Altruism or kin-selection (only exception being the dog raising tigers and other animals), while in cases of altruistic humans there are examples where there is no reciprocation or kin/species-selection.  On that note, from reading this article - are there other examples of altruism in animals where there is no reciprocation expected and is not due to kin selection?  The examples of the muskrat and wolf packs seem to be just an extension of kin selection since those animals rove around in packs and survival of the pack seems to dictate all their behaviors.  Be interesting if an example exists of top predator helping out prey or other predators existed (like an adult lion helping out a hyena existed, or an orca saving a seal) 174.21.231.4 (talk) 08:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Examples
It seems to me that some of the examples given of altruism in nature can be seen as reciprocal altruism, such as the vampire bats example. Someone needs to weed through this and make sure that the article gives examples of non-reciprocal altruism. It also couldn't hurt to explain the psychological benefit animals recieve by helping other animals. A case of this reward in humans is given in the wiki article titles Altruism.--98.193.73.250 (talk) 20:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggest re-name
I thought I'd ask informally first about whether anyone minds I rename this Altruism in Animals? Ethics is a theory or system of principles not a loose collection of behaviours. Acting ethically is acting with an axiom of conduct in mind. Further, altruism is used zoologically to denote exactly what's described here. There would be some redundancy with "Altruism in ethology and evolutionary biology" on the Altruism page but that seems fine as this would be the expansion. The intro also reads like the beginning of personal essay and should be tidied up. Marskell 12:34, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd support a name change. I think the current title of "Nonhuman animals ethics" is rather confusing. I visited this page after I saw it on RC and was curious about what the article was about. My first assumption was that it had something to do with the ethics of treatment of animals. The current content of the article didn't immediately come to mind, probably because I rarely associate ethics with non-humans. Altruism in Animals would be acceptable to me, as would Animal Altruism. Carbonite | Talk 12:45, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


 * OK I will be bold and move it; I like Altruism as the first word as it will be slightly more distinct in browsing categories. I will work on the intro to reflect th change. The first sentence, "Nonhuman animals ethics account for an explanation of the origins of human ethics," is utterly POV for example. Marskell 15:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

--- i've seen in a documentary elephant protecting some animals(don't remember wich ones) from predators(don't remember neither) mabe neer a point where there is water (mabe in desert but i'm not shure)

Merge to Evolutionary ethics
The result was do not merge to Evolutionary ethics. See also discussion in Evolutionary ethics -- Jack (talk) 10:38, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Following Fastfission's suggestions above, I propose to merge this very incomplete article to Evolutionary ethics. Interesting subject, needs close attention and exposition of various points of views (not only "Altruism is vastly documented", which sounds like a very anthropomorphic beginning - just to start the debate :-) Lapaz (talk) 19:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Er... why evolutionary ethics? Altruism seems like the only plausible place to merge. I would suggest leaving it. Richard001 (talk) 03:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * {| style="background:#ddffdd; padding:2px 2px 2px 2px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"


 * I'm not a biologist or an ethicist (esthetician? tee hee) but I would say that the behavior of altruism in animals is definitely not the same thing as evolutionary ethics. This phemomenon is an example that is cited when evolutionary ethics is discussed but it is not the same thing.  If more substance is needed Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene is one possible source for citations.--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 06:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * }
 * }

Cleanup list
I like the contents in the list in the section Examples of animal altruism but the list itself looks "unclean", kind of. I propose one or more paragraphs to be produced that bundles all those examples, citations remaining as they are, into a coherent readable discourse. All examples seem to be relevant and nice, the text structure doesn't seem exactly delectable however... ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Subjectively I think there are about three subthemes: protection/defense, food redistribution, and communication/coordination that puts self in (temporary) inferior position toward collective. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:40, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Regarding the citation and sources - the wolf/dog one, I'm pretty certain, comes from Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression, and should be referenced as such, but I can't find a single reference to that book on Wikipedia (if somebody does, please include it here ;)). Also, relating to some of other discussions here, it is not a case of reciprocal altruism, but rather kin selection. --93.105.205.33 (talk) 02:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

all examples are intraspecies
but as one poster suggests, elephants have been known to help other species and perhaps the article cd be expanded to include such examples.--Jrm2007 (talk) 00:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Article POV
The article is written from an "altruism is just an illusion" perspective:
 * Researchers on alleged altruist behaviours among animals

why not just "altruist", does the reason for altruism provide a counter-proof against the existence of altruism?
 * Recent developments in game theory have provided some explanations for apparent altruism

here too. What's the "apparent"? The research question should be: we have altruism, why is this a good strategy in some cases? Which cases? Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 07:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

altruism at the bottom
It needs to be decided where the line is being drawn at altruism. The dog looking after kittens etc is fully altruistic, but most of the others are examples of kin selection or behaviour that is selfish in the long run. Strictly altruism should not contain any selfish behaviour, which would remove almost all of the examples shown. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.38.36 (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * A good point, but not without its own difficulties in regard of defining "selfish behaviour". Is the supposed altruism tainted where an individual's behavior benefits kin, or society? Or benefits the gene?  What may seem atlruistic often has these subtle benefits. E.g., in the just added example of lemurs caring for young not their own: they are probably kin, and closely related at that. At any rate, citations showing where someone else (a WP:RS) has described a behavior as altruistic should probably be required for all examples. _ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

dolphin alturism pushing to surface link broken
ref #8. new link:

http://www.dolphinworld.org/stories/facts-about-dolphins.htm

Disagree with move and change of name
I strongly disagree with the change of the name of this article. To have "(biology)" implies that plants show altruism. Altruism is a decision made by animals, not plants. The example of protists in the article should not be there. It is not altruism because the protists have no choice. The article name should be reverted, and in my opinion, any change of name of an article should be discussed on the Talk page before any change is made.__DrChrissy (talk) 10:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, this name change is not uncontroversial and should not have been made without prior discussion. The name is better as it was, as well as being consistent with a number of related articles. --Epipelagic (talk) 11:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Choice has nothing to do with it – the point is that some species have evolved such that individuals will do things that are seemingly to their own detriment. Slime molds, which are protists and not animals, have been used as a model system for understanding altruism for many years; eg see  for one example.  I'm not sure whether "Altruism (biology)" is the perfect name, but the old title excluded this well studied example (which could be expanded, actually). I agree the move should have been discussed first. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 11:33, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but that's no reason why the article might not be better called Altruism in animals. The original title was consistent with many other article in the series on ethology. It is true that protists would not belong in such an article, but that in itself is not a problem. Protists are of interest because they push the envelop of what might be called altruistic. Slime mould is a particularly primitive type of community, and might almost be compared to a coffee ring. Could there be some sense in which the water molecules in a coffee ring could be said to "sacrifice themselves" by allowing themselves to evaporate for the greater goal of allowing the coffee ring to form. I doubt you would think it appropriate to talk of altruistic water molecules, yet the situation is not that far removed from slime mould. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps there should be 2 articles, one called Altruism in Animals, and another called Altruism in Non-Animals? That would also make way for any possibility of editors wanting to include plants.__DrChrissy (talk) 09:57, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * A lot of research papers mention altruism in plants, and also altruism in bacteria, and I would think quite an interesting article could be written covering altruism in non-animals. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:53, 4 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I moved the article for two reasons: first, "in animals" may imply that humans are not included in the definition (if you run a search for the phrase "in animals" on Wikipedia, you will see that nearly all articles with this title are either making this distinction, e.g. Emotion in animals, or are redirects.) As a second reason that is specific to this article, altruism is a general biological principle that isn't restricted to animals, as has already been pointed out. I'm not sure that there's a case for making a distinction based on the type of species that exhibits the phenomenon - it seems to me to be analogous to splitting Evolution into "Evolution in animals" and "Evolution in non-animals." On the title itself, I selected the first appropriate name that came to mind at the time, but something like Altruism (behavior) would also work.  Sunrise    (talk)  19:34, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for a thorough re-write
This is a very important article as it deals with a great evolutionary mystery, which has exercised the minds of biologist for a long time. But a lot of it is written in a manner that makes it almost impossible to appreciate the problem or the suggested solutions. For instance, what does the following paragraph under the heading "Implications for Evolutionary Theory" mean?


 * In a study by Sebastien Lion et al., the aspects of life history traits, population density within a habitat, fecundity and survivals’ effect on altruism are observed simultaneously. It is stated that there is a feedback between life history traits, demography, kin selection and the selective pressures on altruism. This study suggests that survival is affected by both age structure of the population and habitat saturation. Survivorship is a life history trait that will affect the selective pressures on social traits which will then in turn affect the population dynamics, creating a feedback on the evolution of altruism. Cooperative breeding comes into play here by individuals helping others to raise offspring thereby increasing fecundity which is known to support altruism behavior and the genes that code for such behaviors.

I have re-written the preceding paragraph, explaining what "kin selection" means and why it is an important concept. This is what was before the change:


 * Kin selection is an instance of inclusive fitness, which combines the number of offspring produced with the number an individual can produce by supporting others, such as siblings.   This theory showed that altruistic behaviour could evolve without the need for group-level selection, and  quickly gained prominence among biologists interested in the evolution of social behaviour..

This is how it reads now:


 * Kin selection is an instance of inclusive fitness, which is based on the notion that an individual shares only half their genes with each offspring, but also with each full-sib. From a evolutionary genetic point of view it is therefore as advantageous to help with the upbringing of full sibs as it is to produce and raise one's own offspring. Co-operative breeding (i.e. helping one's parents raise sibs - provided they are full sibs) could thus evolve without the need for group-level selection. This quickly gained prominence among biologists interested in the evolution of social behaviour.

If anyone agrees that the new version is more informative than the previous version, then I would like to make a strong plea that the entire article is re-written in the same explanatory style. Wikipedia articles are not written so that only those who already know everything about the subject can read it, but it should, in my view, be understandable to the person who knows little or nothing about the subject.

I am unable to tackle this task as I do not have access to all the required literature (and hence have no idea what Sebastian Lion et al. (above) discovered, and how their finding promote our understanding of the evolution of altruism.) Oggmus (talk) 11:22, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The paragraph about Lion et. al's work is a bit dense. And (not being familiar with this field) I don't know just how notable it is. (If you want to take a closer look the article is available at here.) That paragraph is (was) a recent addition, not (that I can see) discussed, and the reference itself is incomplete, All this makes it somewhat suspect.


 * My indecision as to whether your change is an improvement (or not) results partly from having to closely examine two large blocks of text. Certainly not impossible, but it requires a lot of careful consideration. In particular, it seems to me that while your version has more information, the original was clearer. Could you offer a simpler version that doesn't pile the information on quite so fast? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:20, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for making Lion et al's original article available to me. It is an interesting article, but of only very peripheral interest to someone coming to grips with the evolution of altruism for the first time. It is the type of article a post-graduate student should read and take note of, but it hardly affect the basics of what is described here in Wikipedia. I have therefore decided that it is best left aside.

In response to your second suggestion I have revised the sentence that describes why "group selection" is a flawed. It was indeed very confusing the way I had originally phrased it. Then I decided to explain the genetics of kin selection in a Foot Note, rather than clutter the already long paragraph with the information necessary to understand the concept. I hope this achieves the desired goal. In its original form the reader was simply asked to take on trust that "kin selection" is a better theory than "group selection", without giving reasons or explaining what either term meant.

I hope that I have interpreted your comments correctly and responded appropriately. I'm afraid it has not made the section shorter or more succinct, but I do hope it is easier to understand. Let me know what you think. Oggmus (talk) 14:07, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Close enough? I don't have enough time right now to give your changes the thorough consideration they deserve, but from a quick look they seem to be an improvement. (Thank you.)


 * Regarding the Lion paper: as you seem knowledgeable about this topic (right?), I think we can rely on your decision to leave it out. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:35, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your encouraging words. I have since found out enough about Robert Triver's "Reciprocal altruism" theory to be able to remove the single, uninformative sentence referring to his work from the list highlighted in the dialogue box as needing attention. His contribution to the understanding of the evolution of altruism is now described in a paragraph between the description of "kin selection" and the "Prisoner's dilemma Game" where it belongs. I hope you'll find time soon to read the entire section and let me know what you think. Or maybe another "watcher" would like to comment. Oggmus (talk) 09:53, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * What, you didn't know about Trivers?? We have so much work to do! :-) ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:18, 23 February 2015 (UTC)



I have now rewritten the entire "Implications for evolutionary theory" section. It is all in prose, and all the concepts are explained so that they can be understood by the non-specialist. The portion that has been replaced contained a great deal of repetition (not always clear that it was repetition!). Some of the other items were not referenced nor did they contain useful links to other Wikipedia articles. They were therefore singularly uninformative. The important items have been incorporated into the rewrite, and all the references "reciprocity" mechanisms are dealt with (or can be dealt with) in the next section of the article (under that title). Oggmus (talk) 13:50, 26 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Note that it is not necessary to save or reproduce any text being deleted, as all edits and prior versions are available from the history. If you are not familiar with that I strongly recommend taking some time to see how it works. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:25, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a million, again. I was following an example I saw in an article where someone had removed or replaced a large chunk of text. Oggmus (talk) 05:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Rewrite of the Implications for Evolutionary Theory
I have re-written the initial section of the "Implications for Evolutionary Theory" section, and provided a fuller explanation of the role of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game in possibly explaining the evolution of altruism. In doing so I have had to delete the paragraph "describing" Sebastien Lion et al's work (see above). The "list" of other suggested mechanism for the evolution of cooperation remains, but I have rearranged the order and removed at least one of the items that did not seem to contribute at all to the understanding of the evolution of altruism. What follows the "list" is a jumble of ideas that are partially repetitive (e.g. listing "kin selection" amongst the ideas that are alternatives to "kin selection"), and re-listing Zahavi's handicap principle, when it has already appeared in the initial list. So this section still needs urgent attention.

If my edits are deemed inaccurate, misinformed or inappropriate then please feel free to click on the "undo" button, although I would like to make a plea that it is then replaced with a far better summary of the problem of the evolution of altruism than the present one, or the one it replaces. Oggmus (talk) 13:36, 16 February 2015 (UTC).

Further editing of the article
Continuing from the preceding section:


 * A cautionary note: although there are only 47 watchers here, this is one of those topics that can be very contentious. I would suggest you make some brief comments on what you see as problems, and what you propose to do. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:42, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for that advice. I'll keep that in mind in future. Oggmus (talk) 06:21, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. In the preceeding section you laid two large blocks of text, which did not invite perusal. Are there any possible issues there, or anywhere else, that you could describe in a succcint sentence or two? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi J. Johnson, I'm not sure what you are requesting. In the "preceding section" (the way I read it) I only altered one section, describing what "kin selection" meant in a way that I thought might make sense to a non-specialist. In the present section, I added two new paragraphs to explain what the Prisoner's dilemma game contributed to the understanding of the evolutionary stability of altruism (and deleted the paragraph mentioned in the previous section that really explained nothing at all, in my view). I am aware this latest edit is very wordy, but I am not sure how I can cut it down to a fewer words and still convey the message to a non-specialist. As it is, I can imagine a non-specialist wondering what all the fuss is about. Given time I might be able to condense it to something more succinct.

But if you are asking me to look at other sections of the article, with a view to improving the article (or even just the section on the "Implications for Evolutionary Theory") I have to confess that I no longer have access to all the literature on the wide range of disciplines that obviously would like to be represented here. So for the moment, at least, I can make no further contributions to this article even though I would love to do so.

I wonder whether it would not be best for us to continue this discussion on my User Page. Oggmus (talk) 19:02, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I suspect you have a some understanding of the topic, and could make some useful improvements, but both the changes you have made and your description of them are a bit difficult to grasp. Let's focus on the previous topic (at )) and see what we can work out there. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:17, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * See for further developments. Oggmus (talk) 13:50, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

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