Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>> Q 1: What do people around here think of the liklihood of a gene
>> for empathy? [..] For instance,
>> empathic behaviours include flocking, schooling and
>> herding, and the tendency of humans to fall into step when
>> walking together.
>
>Flocking and schooling can be quite adequately explained by the
>selfish gene model.
That's what *I* said! Wasn't it??
>> Q 3: We know that the concept of genetic altruism is
>> highly dodgy. So how does the concept of genetic
>> empathy stand up?
>
>"We" don't know any such thing. A few crackpots doubt it, but
>they are in the same class as flat-earthers or creationists.
Sorry, could you expand on this? My best info is many folk
incl Dawkins doubting the reality of altruism due to the
difficulty of explaining it genetically. Though I know there's
been more recent work on it. But "flat-earthers or
creationists"??
--
Robin Faichney
r.j.faichney@stirling.ac.uk
http://www.stir.ac.uk/envsci/staff/rjf1/