What Are The Limits To Kin Selection In Humans?

T

th.w.heller

Registered Member
Whenever the subject of human conflict (no matter what the scale) comes up during lunchtime discussions a colleague of mine invariably brings up kin selection as the obvious underlying reason. I accuse him of gross overgeneralization. Am I wrong? I'm a bioinformaticist / molecular biologist with a strong background in biochemistry and biophysics NOT evolution and population genetics although my recent interests and studies are straying towards the latter. What are the limits to kin selection in humans? Is there any correlation between Dunbar's Number (or a reasonable facsimile) and such a limit? If kin selection is fairly limited what comes into effect beyond that limit - reputation-based social institutions which soften "the limitations that kinship-based and (direct or indirect) reciprocity-based altruism place on group size" (Norenzayan and Shariff, Science 322:58, 2008)?
Thanks, TWH.
 
I had really hoped somebody would have posted with some thoughts on this question. It isn't my field of expertise and was hoping for some illumination on something I find very interesting. I have also found it very hard to find anything concrete in the literature - perhaps I'm just not searching properly.
 
Is that where we are kind to people that resemble us, but aggressive towards outsiders?
 
What I'm wondering is at what point does the recognition and drive to protect your closely related kin (as Haldane said "I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins") break down in favor of larger groups which, as far as I can tell, must operate on different principles. The reputation-based social institutions are based on forming a reputation which is then policed by others through shame etc causing you to conform, look out for the group etc. Some of the most successful of these types of groups are religious but you can also substitute situations where there is a belief in a social good like democracy, court systems etc. Some of my colleagues thumb their noses at these sorts of things because they don't appreciate the religious angle (to me the religious angle is immaterial it's just the end-result that counts) or they won't buy the idea of group selection to any extent. There is a fair amount of data (again I'm no expert which is why I posed the question) that indicates that recognition of kin and therefore the ability to act on that knowledge is pretty limited (to somewhere around Dunbar's number? - 200 max give or take? in this case the group maximum is based on the limitations of neocortex size - the Wikipedia entry is a fairly good summary - other studies are solely based on kin recognition in different species).
 
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