I am not totally sold on the argument that Natural Selection's merit function is purely to maximize offspring. It is trivial to come up with examples where that is a bad strategy. For example the smaller a herbivores ecosystem, the less they reproduce. A species which reproduced at the rate of locusts but only ate rare amazonian berries would very quickly drive the berry to extinction and then itself. So a more accurate "goal" for natural selection might be to maximize long term, stable, populations of offspring.
This ends up being kind of important, since it starts to explain behavior which otherwise doesn't make sense in the short term. E.g. It has been shown quite convincingly that altruism is a heritable trait in genetic systems. Essentially, even if X% of your tribe has the "altruism gene" it can be beneficial in the long term for that gene if you die heroically protecting your tribe.
So I think there might be a convincing argument there that if natural selection / evolution is pushing us towards stable long term offspring population. If so then our sub goals may not be that far off from optimal.
Regarding the berries, if there was just a gene that said, "don't eat as much if food is running low", the individuals that had that gene would simply be outcompeted by those that don't. (Even though this is worse for everyone than if everyone slowed down.) In order for such a gene to spread, you'd need some kind of enforcement mechanism where individuals who defect are punished. That is to say, collectively beneficial behavior can emerge, but it must be fully reproductive to behavior that is selfish at the level of the gene.
I think altruism is similar, in that it can also be reduced the behavior that's selfish at the level of gene, as you say.
So, overall, I think "maximize number of offspring" is definitely not quite right. The answer is more, "maximize number of copies of genes that persist". (But even that is a little complicated as you can have gene/gene competition as in transposons!)
2 Comments
YetiBeets@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 15d
I am not totally sold on the argument that Natural Selection's merit function is purely to maximize offspring. It is trivial to come up with examples where that is a bad strategy. For example the smaller a herbivores ecosystem, the less they reproduce. A species which reproduced at the rate of locusts but only ate rare amazonian berries would very quickly drive the berry to extinction and then itself. So a more accurate "goal" for natural selection might be to maximize long term, stable, populations of offspring.
This ends up being kind of important, since it starts to explain behavior which otherwise doesn't make sense in the short term. E.g. It has been shown quite convincingly that altruism is a heritable trait in genetic systems. Essentially, even if X% of your tribe has the "altruism gene" it can be beneficial in the long term for that gene if you die heroically protecting your tribe.
So I think there might be a convincing argument there that if natural selection / evolution is pushing us towards stable long term offspring population. If so then our sub goals may not be that far off from optimal.
idk, more analysis needed lol
dynomight@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
Regarding the berries, if there was just a gene that said, "don't eat as much if food is running low", the individuals that had that gene would simply be outcompeted by those that don't. (Even though this is worse for everyone than if everyone slowed down.) In order for such a gene to spread, you'd need some kind of enforcement mechanism where individuals who defect are punished. That is to say, collectively beneficial behavior can emerge, but it must be fully reproductive to behavior that is selfish at the level of the gene.
I think altruism is similar, in that it can also be reduced the behavior that's selfish at the level of gene, as you say.
So, overall, I think "maximize number of offspring" is definitely not quite right. The answer is more, "maximize number of copies of genes that persist". (But even that is a little complicated as you can have gene/gene competition as in transposons!)