The Political Asylum

AngryLiberal · Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:35 pm Post subject:

Wakey, if you give it some thought, you'd realise that natural selection can produce all manner of behaviours as well as physical qualities.

Some times it's not immediately clear what the benefit of a particular quality is, but if you look into it and do your research you'll probably find the answer. Sometimes there are creatures who don't make use of their genetic traits. If a sufficiently large chunk of this creatures population cease to use this trait then it's possible that another trait might become more dominant.

For example take domestic cats, they are specialised hunters, but the stray cat who my family have adopted at their office, NEVER hunts. He is however incredibly docile and this endears him to humans who feed him. Ultimately Natural Selection may favour this kind of cat and their physique will change cats to be 'cuter' possibly at the expense of making them less specialised hunters.

However, a few altruistic individuals who decide to become priests won't necessarily help spread altruism in the gene pool (though they might encourage mimicry by which it will spread.) But equally they are not numerous enough in the population to kill it off altruism as a genetic trait so it survives.
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David
This post is dedicated to those who lost their lives in the Star Wars films: Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Padme, Obi Wan, Yoda, Stormtrooper #5, Qui Gon, Dak, Biggs, Stormtrooper #22, Palpatine. Everyone on the Death Stars and sadly not Jar Jar Binks.