Friday, October 23, 2009

Parental Care - Kin Selection


How would The Selfish Gene go about explaining the fact that some animal mothers eat their newborn babies? The ones that are weak, and probably won't survive anyway? Would this still be some form of altruism towards their kin, they want them to suffer less, so they eat them, instead of having them starve to death, or by some other means? What about Sea Turtles, who crawl up to shore, lay their eggs, and then leave, leaving their babies to figure out how to get to the shore themselves? I don't think that all parents necessarily care for their offspring in the way that Richard Dawkins explains in The Selfish Gene.

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