Thursday, November 10, 2011

altruism(recessive) = evolutionarily disadvantaged?

I am aware of the special cases and circumstances where altruistic behavior can be justified and actually aid in the survival of a species.  BUT it's possible that altruistic behavior just for the sake of being altruistic is detrimental to the survival of said species.  If we are all in accordance with this, I have something I need to talk about.  Lets say hypothetically that altruism goes hand in hand with recessive and selfishness with dominant.  I feel like this isn't too radical of an idea.  I'm certain selfishness is a characteristic common amongst most dominant figures of any species.  Likewise, recessiveness (I think passive is a word better suited to describe a characteristic, but both entail the same concept) is a characteristic most likely to be found in altruistic individuals.  (I will ignore for now the special cases in which this may not be the case.  I am aware that they exist but in a general sense of the words, the possible relationship between each one is obvious.)  My idea is If there is a connection between the two,  could it be possible that a body's phenotype that consists predominantly of recessive genes be evolutionarily at a disadvantage with a body whose phenotype is predominantly dominated by dominant genes?  This also then poses another question.  Can it be assumed that if the phenotype of an individual is predominantly recessive, that that individuals genotype also be predominantly recessive?  Please tear me apart with criticisms, I need to learn!!!!!

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