Humans: The most selfish of them all

Thats why you are taught at an early age to share...


Sharing is one of the major cornerstones to a civilized society.

If you don't have sharing you have selfishness...

If you share, it's an act of giving... It's a self-less act...

I agree, we are selfish, it's part of human nature... Monkey's are selfish, dogs are selfish..

Any living organism is selfish, it has a strong desire to survive... Though we are taught to live like civilized people, not barbaric, we still have our unruly attitudes...

First instinct tells you it's all about you which =survival instinct...

However, give it a second thought and tell yourself, you don't need to be that way, your fine, whatever.. It's just part of being a living organism...

Originally posted by quango
when was the last time any other animal ran into a burning building to save another animal?

I know of mother cats that ran into a burning building to save her young... She was badly burned but she didn't care because she thought more about her babies then herself...

However, if it was a strange cat, I doubt she would care...

plato.stanford.edu...

Biological Altruism

In evolutionary biology, an organism is said to behave altruistically when its behaviour benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself. The costs and benefits are measured in terms of reproductive fitness, or expected number of offspring. So by behaving altruistically, an organism reduces the number of offspring it is likely to produce itself, but boosts the number that other organisms are likely to produce. This biological notion of altruism is not identical to the everyday concept. In everyday parlance, an action would only be called �altruistic� if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. But in the biological sense there is no such requirement. Indeed, some of the most interesting examples of biological altruism are found among creatures that are (presumably) not capable of conscious thought at all, e.g. insects. For the biologist, it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action counts as altruistic, not the intentions, if any, with which the action is performed.

Altruistic behaviour is common throughout the animal kingdom, particularly in species with complex social structures. For example, vampire bats regularly regurgitate blood and donate it to other members of their group who have failed to feed that night, ensuring they do not starve. In numerous bird species, a breeding pair receives help in raising its young from other �helper� birds, who protect the nest from predators and help to feed the fledglings. Vervet monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked. In social insect colonies (ants, wasps, bees and termites), sterile workers devote their whole lives to caring for the queen, constructing and protecting the nest, foraging for food, and tending the larvae. Such behaviour is maximally altruistic: sterile workers obviously do not leave any offspring of their own -- so have personal fitness of zero -- but their actions greatly assist the reproductive efforts of the queen.

From a Darwinian viewpoint, the existence of altruism in nature is at first sight puzzling, as Darwin himself realized. Natural selection leads us to expect animals to behave in ways that increase their own chances of survival and reproduction, not those of others. But by behaving altruistically an animal reduces its own fitness, so should be at a selective disadvantage vis-�-vis one which behaves selfishly. To see this, imagine that some members of a group of Vervet monkeys give alarm calls when they see predators, but others do not. Other things being equal, the latter will have an advantage. By selfishly refusing to give an alarm call, a monkey can reduce the chance that it will itself be attacked, while at the same time benefiting from the alarm calls of others. So we should expect natural selection to favour those monkeys that do not give alarm calls over those that do. But this raises an immediate puzzle. How did the alarm-calling behaviour evolve in the first place, and why has it not been eliminated by natural selection? How can the existence of altruism be reconciled with basic Darwinian principles?

[edit on 04/9/10 by GradyPhilpott]

Wow, I went to sleep and came back to see many "good" inputs.

As I said before, some actions may look like selfless when compared with the immediate past, but when compared with the deep, it will show that it is selfish.

Yeah neths have taken care of their sick, but I think the reason is that because as you they lived risky lives, meaning more chance to get injured and sick, so by taking care of the sick, they ensure their survival.

quote from gradies last post

"How did the alarm-calling behaviour evolve in the first place, and why has it not been eliminated by natural selection? How can the existence of altruism be reconciled with basic Darwinian principles?" end quote

stating the obvious: perhaps this is yet more evidence of holes in darwins theories.... maybe altruistic characteristics can be credited to something more devine?

-lost

I believe that humans are here to rise above their animal state. It's called spiritualism. When that happens a person becomes something more than a selfish predatory animal.
That's why we have free will and animals don't.

Originally posted by elaine
I believe that humans are here to rise above their animal state. It's called spiritualism. When that happens a person becomes something more than a selfish predatory animal.
That's why we have free will and animals don't.

Intersting thought, but when will it come into being? Right now we are little more than selfish predatory animal, at least most of us are.