BIO 358 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Group Selection
Document Summary
Lecture 7: kinship independent cooperation and human uniqueness. Kinship-independent cooperation the fundamental, unique human adaptation. Kinship-independent social cooperation in non-human animals enforceability, coercion and cost, part 2: some primates (macaques), face infanticides. They suppress non-kin male infanticide: that"s the pinnacle of macaques, non-kin social cooperation. Males refrain from infanticide: our standards of cooperation are vastly higher than macaques, because the costs of coercive violence requiring cooperation are vastly lower. The problem is not cooperation but conflict of interest: if you have an animal that can control conflicts of interest creating a vast new domain of kinship-independent social cooperation. Its mind and body should be radically redesigned to exploit the adaptive opportunities from that cooperation: over 6million years we evolved access to inexpensive coercion of adults, which lead to practical control of non-kin conflicts of interest. Proximal killing, remote killing and the cost of coercive suppression of conflicts of interest: threat must be projected, which requires cost.
