Talk:Altruism (biology)

message: To me the mention of this lion seems out of place within the section. the other examples are very general and then this one is specific. I suggest removal, or perhaps a new section like "Specific examples" or something to that effect.
Gritironskillet 03:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kamuniak 

message: May I suggest that the author of this page puts his preconceived ideas away.  He should particularly note Williams Revolution, group selection, evolutionary game theory hawk-dove game, prisoner's dilemma and learn some natural history. Dunc|☺ 21:20, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh and Hamilton's rule, kin selection and inclusive fitness. Dunc|☺ 21:22, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  See also naturalistic fallacy. Dunc|☺ 21:35, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Although censoring me is one option, I'll request peer review.  Dunc|☺ 00:34, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Checking facts 

message: Would that we humans were more like toward each other.
:Some do, just as some animals don't.  Also note that almost all of the examples seem to be of reciprocative-Altruism or kin-selection (only exception being the dog raising tigers and other animals), while in cases of altruistic humans there are examples where there is no reciprocation or kin/species-selection.  On that note, from reading this article - are there other examples of altruism in animals where there is no reciprocation expected and is not due to kin selection?  The examples of the muskrat and wolf packs seem to be just an extension of kin selection since those animals rove around in packs and survival of the pack seems to dictate all their behaviors.  Be interesting if an example exists of top predator helping out prey or other predators existed (like an adult lion helping out a hyena existed, or an orca saving a seal) 174.21.231.4 (talk) 08:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Pleasant Article

message: It seems to me that some of the examples given of altruism in nature can be seen as reciprocal altruism, such as the vampire bats example. Someone needs to weed through this and make sure that the article gives examples of non-reciprocal altruism. It also couldn't hurt to explain the psychological benefit animals recieve by helping other animals. A case of this reward in humans is given in the wiki article titles Altruism.--98.193.73.250 (talk) 20:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples 

message: I thought I'd ask informally first about whether anyone minds I rename this Altruism in Animals? Ethics is a theory or system of principles not a loose collection of behaviours. Acting ethically is acting with an axiom of conduct in mind. Further, altruism is used zoologically to denote exactly what's described here. There would be some redundancy with "Altruism in ethology and evolutionary biology" on the Altruism page but that seems fine as this would be the expansion. 
The intro also reads like the beginning of personal essay and should be tidied up. Marskell 12:34, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd support a name change. I think the current title of "Nonhuman animals ethics" is rather confusing. I visited this page after I saw it on RC and was curious about what the article was about. My first assumption was that it had something to do with the ethics of treatment of animals. The current content of the article didn't immediately come to mind, probably because I rarely associate ethics with non-humans. Altruism in Animals would be acceptable to me, as would Animal Altruism. Carbonite | Talk 12:45, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK I will be bold and move it; I like Altruism as the first word as it will be slightly more distinct in browsing categories. I will work on the intro to reflect th change. The first sentence, "Nonhuman animals ethics account for an explanation of the origins of human ethics," is utterly POV for example. Marskell 15:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggest re-name 

message: The result was do not merge to Evolutionary ethics. See also discussion in Evolutionary ethics -- Jack (talk) 10:38, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Er... why evolutionary ethics? Altruism seems like the only plausible place to merge. I would suggest leaving it. Richard001 (talk) 03:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

text: I'm not a biologist or an ethicist (esthetician? tee hee) but I would say that the behavior of altruism in animals is definitely not the same thing as evolutionary ethics.  This phemomenon is an example that is cited when evolutionary ethics is discussed but it is not the same thing.  If more substance is needed Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene is one possible source for citations.--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 06:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge to [[Evolutionary ethics]] 

message: I like the contents in the list in the section Examples of animal altruism but the list itself looks "unclean", kind of. I propose one or more paragraphs to be produced that bundles all those examples, citations remaining as they are, into a coherent readable discourse. All examples seem to be relevant and nice, the text structure doesn't seem exactly delectable however... ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Subjectively I think there are about three subthemes: protection/defense, food redistribution, and communication/coordination that puts self in (temporary) inferior position toward collective. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:40, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Regarding the citation and sources - the wolf/dog one, I'm pretty certain, comes from Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression, and should be referenced as such, but I can't find a single reference to that book on Wikipedia (if somebody does, please include it here ;)). Also, relating to some of other discussions here, it is not a case of reciprocal altruism, but rather kin selection. --93.105.205.33 (talk) 02:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup list

message: but as one poster suggests, elephants have been known to help other species and perhaps the article cd be expanded to include such examples.--Jrm2007 (talk) 00:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  all examples are intraspecies 

message: The article is written from an "altruism is just an illusion" perspective:
:Researchers on alleged altruist behaviours among animals
why not just "altruist", does the reason for altruism provide a counter-proof against the existence of altruism?
:Recent developments in game theory have provided some explanations for apparent altruism
here too. What's the "apparent"? The research question should be: we have altruism, why is this a good strategy in some cases? Which cases? Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 07:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article POV 

message: It needs to be decided where the line is being drawn at altruism. The dog looking after kittens etc is fully altruistic, but most of the others are examples of kin selection or behaviour that is selfish in the long run. Strictly altruism should not contain any selfish behaviour, which would remove almost all of the examples shown.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.38.36 (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: A good point, but not without its own difficulties in regard of defining "selfish behaviour". Is the supposed altruism tainted where an individual's behavior benefits kin, or society? Or benefits the gene?   What may seem atlruistic often has these subtle benefits. E.g., in the just added example of lemurs caring for young not their own: they are probably kin, and closely related at that. At any rate, citations showing where someone else (a WP:RS) has described a behavior as altruistic should probably be required for all examples. _ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: altruism at the bottom

message: I strongly disagree with the change of the name of this article.  To have "(biology)" implies that plants show altruism.  Altruism is a decision made by animals, not plants. The example of protists in the article should not be there. It is not altruism because the protists have no choice.  The article name should be reverted, and in my opinion, any change of name of an article should be discussed on the Talk page before any change is made.__DrChrissy (talk) 10:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this name change is not uncontroversial and should not have been made without prior discussion. The name is better as it was, as well as being consistent with a number of related articles. --Epipelagic (talk) 11:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

text: Choice has nothing to do with it – the point is that some species have evolved such that individuals will do things that are seemingly to their own detriment.  Slime molds, which are protists and not animals, have been used as a model system for understanding altruism for many years; eg see  for one example.  I'm not sure whether "Altruism (biology)" is the perfect name, but the old title excluded this well studied example (which could be expanded, actually). I agree the move should have been discussed first. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 11:33, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Perhaps, but that's no reason why the article might not be better called Altruism in animals. The original title was consistent with many other article in the series on ethology. It is true that protists would not belong in such an article, but that in itself is not a problem. Protists are of interest because they push the envelop of what might be called altruistic. Slime mould is a particularly primitive type of community, and might almost be compared to a coffee ring. Could there be some sense in which the water molecules in a coffee ring could be said to "sacrifice themselves" by allowing themselves to evaporate for the greater goal of allowing the coffee ring to form. I doubt you would think it appropriate to talk of altruistic water molecules, yet the situation is not that far removed from slime mould. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps there should be 2 articles, one called Altruism in Animals, and another called Altruism in Non-Animals? That would also make way for any possibility of editors wanting to include plants.__DrChrissy (talk) 09:57, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  A lot of research papers mention altruism in plants, and also altruism in bacteria, and I would think quite an interesting article could be written covering altruism in non-animals. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:53, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved the article for two reasons: first, "in animals" may imply that humans are not included in the definition (if you run a search for the phrase "in animals" on Wikipedia, you will see that nearly all articles with this title are either making this distinction, e.g. Emotion in animals, or are redirects.) As a second reason that is specific to this article, altruism is a general biological principle that isn't restricted to animals, as has already been pointed out. I'm not sure that there's a case for making a distinction based on the type of species that exhibits the phenomenon - it seems to me to be analogous to splitting Evolution into "Evolution in animals" and "Evolution in non-animals." On the title itself, I selected the first appropriate name that came to mind at the time, but something like Altruism (behavior) would also work. Sunrise (talk) 19:34, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disagree with move and change of name 

message: I have re-written the initial section of the "Implications for Evolutionary Theory" section, and provided a fuller explanation of the role of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game in possibly explaining the evolution of altruism. In doing so I have had to delete the paragraph "describing" Sebastien Lion et al's work (see above). The "list" of other suggested mechanism for the evolution of cooperation remains, but I have rearranged the order and removed at least one of the items that did not seem to contribute at all to the understanding of the evolution of altruism. What follows the "list" is a jumble of ideas that are partially repetitive (e.g. listing "kin selection" amongst the ideas that are alternatives to "kin selection"), and re-listing Zahavi's handicap principle, when it has already appeared in the initial list. So this section still needs urgent attention. 
If my edits are deemed inaccurate, misinformed or inappropriate then please feel free to click on the "undo" button, although I would like to make a plea that it is then replaced with a far better summary of the problem of the evolution of altruism than the present one, or the one it replaces. Oggmus (talk) 13:36, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite of the Implications for Evolutionary Theory

message: Continuing from the preceding section:
:A cautionary note: although there are only 47 watchers here, this is one of those topics that can be very contentious. I would suggest you make some brief comments on what you see as problems, and what you propose to do. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:42, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: You're welcome. In the preceeding section you laid two large blocks of text, which did not invite perusal. Are there any possible issues there, or anywhere else, that you could describe in a succcint sentence or two? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

text: I suspect you have a some understanding of the topic, and could make some useful improvements, but both the changes you have made and your description of them are a bit difficult to grasp. Let's focus on the previous topic (at #Request for a thorough re-write)) and see what we can work out there. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:17, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

text: See #Request for a thorough re-write for further developments. Oggmus (talk) 13:50, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Further editing of the article

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