Inclusive fitness
Evolutionary theorist William Hamilton showed that natural selection leads organisms to maximise their “inclusive fitness”, not their personal reproductive success. That is, they behave as if they value the lives of relatives, which may lead them to exhibit altruism towards kin.
No such principle exists for multilevel selection, as described by David Sloan Wilson (Instant Expert, 6 August). Except for those special cases in which within-group selection is eliminated, groups cannot be regarded as fitness-maximising “superorganisms”. This is why evolutionary biologists prefer to work with inclusive fitness rather than multilevel selection. Only the theory of inclusive fitness describes both the process and the purpose of Darwinian adaptation.
From Bryn Glover
D. S. Wilson offered a useful and timely gathering of the thoughts of biologists over the past few decades on whether altruism is a natural characteristic or an artificial replicator of human culture 鈥� what Richard Dawkins called a “meme” 鈥� imposed by the demands of civilisation, religion and overpopulation.
As humanity approaches what may be its ultimate crisis over climate, energy, food, land and resources, it is vital that our tactics should be based upon the best information, science and analysis. Those who advocate business as usual, allowing market forces to continue to govern outcomes, often quote a form of simplistic Darwinism based on the phrases “survival of the fittest” and “nature red in tooth and claw”.
But supporters of a cooperative approach are frequently caught out by biologists’ apparent support for the individualistic manifestation of human behaviour. I am heartened that my arguments are now supported by what Wilson refers to as “a new consensus”, and that the individualism advocated by former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher was at best wrong-headed. Unless we can devise a philosophical socialist approach to the production and distribution of resources, acceptable on a willing, voluntary basis by the vast majority, then humanity is probably destined for a new exploitative tribalism.
Cracoe, North Yorkshire, UK
Seriously memetic
Perhaps the playful tone and title of Jonnie Hughes’s book On the Origin of Tepees (6 August, p 48) lulled reviewer Jonathan Keats into underestimating the book’s ambitious and original discussion of memes.
Unlike the vast majority of recent writings about memes, this is a serious book that does “add to the theory” in spite of Keats’s denial. It belongs on the reading list of anybody who hopes to use Richard Dawkins’s insight into memes, offering a serious scientific account of cultural change and innovation. That it is entertaining is a bonus, not a substitute for substance.
Unnecessary zombie
Elizabeth Hatherell’s discussion of medication problems in children perpetuates a misconception about attention-deficit disorder: she writes that the drugs “numb all feelings” (16 July, p 28). In fact, people respond differently, and finding the right drug and dose with tolerable side effects takes time.
If a child is numbed or “zombied out” by medication, there is a problem with the drug selection and/or dose. This is a side effect which no one should have to endure, not a necessary condition of treatment.
Truth about trees
In his letter (18 June, p 35) Philip Stewart provided excellent tips for climate change mitigation: reforestation of denuded areas, greater use of timber products, and their reuse and recycling. My calculations have brought me to the same conclusions.
However, great care must be taken not to confuse those ideas with similar-sounding ones from forestry industries regarding primary forests or secondary forests after one harvest cycle. The industry is confusing the public, in Australia at least, by cloaking its logging operations in public-relations talk of reforestation.
Removing wood from primary forests and replanting trees has a time-averaged net emission for several harvest cycles, whereas reforestation on long-cleared land has net sequestration of carbon for several cycles.
We need to differentiate, stop wasting public resources on mischievous PR, and work on getting it right.
Incontinence bots
I congratulate the volunteers on the project Living with Robots and Interactive Companions, who are trying to find out how robots can be truly useful to people 鈥� and particularly to “help the elderly with fetching and carrying things around, memory and entertainment” (6 August, p 22).
Many of my relatives have lived well into their 90s, including an aunt who drove fast and well on her 90th birthday.
In my experience the real problem for elderly people comes with incontinence. Few people talk about this subject. No doubt the scientists designing this programme and the volunteers are too young to consider it.
Surely what is really needed is a friendly, comforting robot to take people to the bathroom and deal with whatever has happened, wash and dress them.
This is no doubt very difficult to achieve. Would that not make it an admirable goal for designers of robots?
In the beginning鈥�
Nigel Depledge notes that: “Prior to 1859, the diversity and intricacy of life were often cited as ‘evidence’ for the existence of God” (23 April, p 29). Imagine an early man who has just about got language.
He’s resting on a rock noting a distant tree, silhouetted against the last moments of the setting sun. He thinks 鈥� that tree wasn’t in that place a few evenings ago.
So he makes some marks on a stick at arm’s length. And he continues observing and noting, like Gregor Mendel looking at his peas, Tycho Brahe looking at the stars, and many more. He is the first scientist.
He goes through the winter solstice, then summer, and guesses the cycle repeats. But he’s also the first entrepreneur, or conman. So he says to the laypeople: “I will make the sun set, over there.” And it does! Afforded deference and respect, he becomes the chief, king, god, priest 鈥� he leads impressive ceremonies.
Unified, the tribe prospers. They ask him to make various other things happen, and by dint of keen observation, plus luck, it goes well, until he goes too far, into areas where he hasn’t done the research. They catch him out and are peeved.
“It’s not me,” he says, “it’s Him up there, I’m just an intermediary. But I’ll tell you how to get back into His good books.” But it soon goes wrong again, and they kill him in a ritual manner.
But by now they cannot do without a chief/king/priest, so after a due interval, a new leader is appointed. And who better than a son, fathered by the old king in his fertility role, with the same name as his father: the king/god is risen from the dead.
Do read the Old Testament. God evolved from man, not vice versa.
Bubble power
Your article on using a series of columns fixed to the seabed to dissipate wave energy and protect a coastline against tsunamis suggests an alternative concept (4 June, p 14).
A curtain of bubbles can also damp waves. Usually such curtains are generated from compressed air which is piped to the seabed, and they are used commercially for special situations 鈥� for example, as protection for marine life when old munitions are destroyed by being blown up.
Perhaps a truly massive “wall” of bubbles could force a wave to break much further offshore, thereby losing much of its energy, or even divert it to a point where it does no harm.
Row for victory
Reduce carbon dioxide emissions from shipping by a billion tonnes a year (23 July, p 5)? No problem.
Remove the diesel engines from the world’s existing fleet and convert them into galleys. Conscript everybody whose body mass index is too high to pull the oars. Two problems are thus solved in one stroke.
No tuning required
I get frustrated by the discussion of the idea that physical parameters were “fine-tuned” for life (23 July, p 34). I feel that the people who promote this idea have missed the deep significance of Charles Darwin’s thought, and also confuse “life” with “life as we know it”.
Of course the precise parameters of the physical laws of our universe are fine-tuned for life as we know it, because life as we know it is an emergent property of those parameters. It is easy to say that if we change the numbers, we wouldn’t have stars and carbon; but much harder to say what we would have instead.
Call of nature
Steve Wilson’s comment on the prehistoric brain pondering life, the universe and everything suggests what I always suspected: all of us would be better off going out to do natural history, it’s what brains evolved for (21 May, p 24).
Must go. I’m meeting some guys at my local watering hole.
For the record
鈥� The reader who alerted Feedback to the startling age of the motor car (6 August, p 64) 鈥� “125!” or 10209 years according to a Mercedes-Benz ad 鈥� is really named Cooper Jeffrey
鈥� The DOI for the paper mentioned in our story about airborne dog faecal bacteria (13 August, p 16) is
鈥� The journal referenced on the use of sump water, a heat exchanger and storm drains to cool the London Underground (6 August, p 38) should have been named as the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers; and the resistors underneath the carriages are (also) used to control the current through the motors as the train starts
鈥� In the clumpy universe story (25 June, p 8), we meant to say that the light detected as cosmic microwave background radiation was emitted 370,000 years after the big bang, not “light years”. Whoops!