Chavarria 1
Javier Chavarria
Dr. Rowe
ANTH 160
11 September 2019
Evolutionary Theory and Altruism
Darwinian evolutionary theory is a very complex and intricate theory that took several years of work to develop; to summarize it up you can say that it’s survival of the fittest. In the wild we also see altruism, the principle or moral practice where you're concerned with another human or animal’s well-being. I think the Darwinian evolutionary theory has nothing to do with the development of altruism. Darwinian evolutionary theory is pretty much survival of the fittest and if that were the case nobody would help one another, neither humans nor animals. Altruism is just an instinct, you don't take the time and think if helping this person or animal would benefit me in any way. During the interview on The Good Show (Wnyc studios, 2010) they interview people about times
they helped someone out heroically. Everytime they asked them why they did it, or what was going through their heads at the moment they helped someone, and neither one of them had an answer. Altruism is just an instinct, it has nothing to do with survival of the fittest. Darwinian evolutionary theory and altruism go against each other, they’re pretty much opposites. One says we need to do whatever it takes to survive and make sure that we pass on our genes to the next generation and on the other hand we have one that says we need to help each other out just to be friendly and caring. During the second week of class in the lecture Evolution and the Environment
(Rowe, 2019) we talked about Darwinian evolutionary theory and how some variations provide you with a competitive advantage. Those advantages then get passed down to the next generation because you survived. Everything we talked about was how it would benefit
