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Re:Ant mega-colony takes over world by DavidSJ on Thursday July 02, 2009 @01:59PM (#684820)
Generally speaking there is no altruism among members of a species unless they are very close genetic kin or at least part of a social group. You need to "expect" that the beneficiary of your altruism either has some of your genes, or will return the favor later.

By "expect", we don't mean conscious calculation, of course. Rather, we mean that the genes which favor this sort of behavior tend to be successful than genes that do not.

Re:Ant mega-colony takes over world by theblackbox on Thursday July 02, 2009 @02:07PM (#684839)
have you read the theory of the "baby face" phenotype being a ploy on this (and/or very similar) mechanism? I'll try and find the story I read. I always found this type of analysis to be where genetics/sociology becomes most interesting

EDIT: although it's well off topic, sorry EDIT': all I can find are the "babyface helps black CEOs" story... wasn't that one I read but it deals with similar findings