This short article is largely my fictional essay. When the scientific community first put together the human genome in early 2000 and published subsequently, we suddenly discovered that there are more than 20,000 genes in our genome. We are still discovering new genes and their functions through a rigorous scientific protocol. These genes are either named based on their location, or their function. They are appended with a number if there are more genes doing the same thing but with a small difference. Metaphorically speaking, humans are discovering newer genes also based on human behaviour. While there is a MAGA gene doing rounds lately in the other half of the world, in our own backyard, two genes were unearthed during these last 6 months of the pandemic. Based on location and function, I choose to call them FC1 and FC2. Their resemblance to our WhatsApp group names is purely coincidental. Other than location and function, these 2 genes also have another attribute – behaviour!
Some of the most fundamental questions concerning our evolutionary origins, our social relations, and the organization of society are centred around the issues of altruism and selfishness. Experimental evidence indicates that human altruism is a powerful force and is unique in the animal world. However, there is much individual heterogeneity and the interaction between altruists and selfish individuals is vital to human cooperation. Depending on the environment and circumstances, a minority of altruists can force a majority of selfish individuals to cooperate or, conversely, a few egoists can induce a large number of altruists to defect. Current gene-based evolutionary theories cannot explain important patterns of human altruism, pointing towards the importance of both theories of cultural evolution as well as gene–culture co-evolution.
In evolutionary biology, an organism is said to behave altruistically when its behaviour benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself. Altruistic behaviour is largely considered more surreal and noble in nature, whereas its opposite, the selfish behaviour is more common in animal world. In everyday parlance, an action would only be called ‘altruistic’ if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. But in the biological sense there is no such requirement. Indeed, some of the most interesting examples of biological altruism are found among creatures that are (presumably) not capable of conscious thought at all, e.g. insects.
Altruistic behaviour is common throughout the animal kingdom, particularly in species with complex social structures. There are plenty of examples of vampire bats, vervet monkeys, helper birds, meercats volunteering an individual to watch out for a predator essentially putting its life at risk. Such behaviour is maximally altruistic. From a Darwinian viewpoint, existence of altruism is puzzling. Natural selection leads us to expect animals to behave in ways that increase their own chances of survival.
Human societies represent a huge anomaly in the animal world. They are based on a detailed division of labour and cooperation between genetically unrelated individuals in large groups. This is obviously true for modern societies like ours. Why are humans so unusual among animals in this respect? Human altruism goes far beyond that which has been observed in the animal world. Among animals, fitness-reducing acts that confer fitness benefits on other individuals are largely restricted to kin groups. On the other hand, humans have the unique ability to form and cooperate within large social groups, which include many genetic strangers. For example, humans invest time and energy in helping other members in their neighborhood and make frequent donations to charity. They come to each other’s rescue in crises and disasters. They respond to appeals to sacrifice for their country during a war, and they put their lives at risk by helping complete strangers in an emergency.
Plato argues in his treatise, ‘The Republic’, that the soul comprises of three parts, rational, appetitive and spirit. He says, for a community to be just, every element has to perform the role to the best ability. He combined the concept of soul as defined by Socrates and Pythagoras before him.
Sigmund Freud presented an alternative theory of ego, superego and id. The id is trying to get you to do things and the superego is trying to get you to make good decisions and be an upstanding person. So the id and superego are always fighting with each other and the ego steps in between the two.
Both of the above abstractions, try to explain human behaviour at an individual and community level.
In the literature, two largely eminent theories of altruism are discussed, which are both mathematically founded and have overwhelming empirical evidence. They are the ‘kin selection theory’ and ‘reciprocal altruism theory’. The kin selection theory says that natural selection would favour behaviours that benefit those organisms or others who share their genes, e.g. closely related kins. On the other hand, reciprocal altruism involves shared altruism between neighbours as a reciprocal act of kindness either directly or at some point in time in future. ‘Competitive altruism theory’ explains other forms of altruism that can not be explained by these two theories. For example, acts of volunteering and charity for non-kin groups.
To some extent, the idea that kin-directed altruism is not ‘real’ has been fostered by the use of the ‘selfish gene’ terminology used by Richard Dawkins in his famous book by same name. A ‘selfish gene’ story can by definition be told about any trait, including a behavioural trait.
The origin of “The Selfish Gene” is intriguing. Dawkins revealed in the first volume of his memoirs, “An Appetite for Wonder”, that the idea of selfish genes was born ten years before the book was published. The Dutch biologist Niko Tinbergen asked Dawkins, then a research assistant with a new doctorate in animal behaviour, to give some lectures in his stead. Inspired by Hamilton, Dawkins wrote in his notes (reproduced in An Appetite for Wonder): “Genes are in a sense immortal. They pass through the generations, reshuffling themselves each time they pass from parent to offspring ... Natural selection will favour those genes which build themselves a body which is most likely to succeed in handing down safely to the next generation a large number of replicas of those genes ... our basic expectation on the basis of the orthodox, neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is that Genes will be 'selfish'.”
As an example of how the book changed science as well as explained it, a throwaway remark by Dawkins led to an entirely new theory in genomics. In the third chapter, he raised the then-new conundrum of excess DNA. It was dawning on molecular biologists that humans possessed 30–50 times more DNA than they needed for protein-coding genes; some species, such as lungfish, had even more. About the usefulness of this “apparently surplus DNA”, Dawkins wrote that “from the point of view of the selfish genes themselves there is no paradox. The true 'purpose' of DNA is to survive, no more and no less. The simplest way to explain the surplus DNA is to suppose that it is a parasite.” Four years later, two pairs of scientists published papers in Nature magazine formally setting out this theory of “selfish DNA”.
So, as a corollary to the competitive altruism theory, I can think of a theory that explains selfishness rather than altruism, which I can best describe as ‘competitive selfishness theory’.
I think we carry these altruist and selfish genes together in our DNA. They get expressed depending on the environment and circumstances. Let’s say FC1 is the altruist gene. It gets expressed routinely for our near and dear ones and those in immediate family (as per all theories mentioned above such as the kin selection, reciprocal altruism and competitive altruism). FC2, on the other hand, let’s say is the selfish gene. It gets expressed routinely for community related issues. Clearly, we have both of them. It is just their amount of gene expression depends on environment and context. Largely, the empirical evidence witnessed during the last 6 months of the pandemic speaks volumes of which gene is expressed more. It is also true, that we have seen both get expressed simultaneously. What else explains a behaviour when the individual is altruistic in his/her environment but clearly selfish for the same issue when it comes to community?
If humans are the most evolved form in animal kingdom and the only form capable of cognitive thinking, then we need to do much better than just expressing the FC2 gene most of the time. That is a behaviour genetically coded in us, by just virtue of us being the living species of animal kingdom. Every other species does that too. While a noble, just, fair and charitable community is clearly a Utopian idea, should the FC1 in us not get expressed at least as much as FC2, if not more? I think it should. What do you think?
