Skeptically Speaking has this:
This week. we’re looking at what science has to say about the origins of selfless – and even self-sacrificing – behavior. We’ll speak to biology professor Lee Alan Dugatkin, about his book The Altruism Equation: Seven Scientists Search for the Origins of Goodness. And we’ll discuss altruism from a neurological perspective, with Duke University Neuroscientist Steve Chang, whose research in monkeys looks at how their brains process and record helpful inclinations.
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Michael Egnor, tiresome little lackey of the DI that he is, is asking his readers to help me find out where altruism is located.
Like sex, altruism is a great mystery in the life sciences, especially in the case of humans (because of is generous expression).
On Friday I assessed an essay by a masters student on the evolution of reciprocity and altruism (she cleverly introduced a notion of benevolent behaviour rather than "altruism" in social contexts, to avoid confusion with genetic altruism.
Too much listening to Tea Baggers (their most appropriate name?), and the 100% Republican opposition to the Health Care Bill that just passed the House (hooray!!!), and fear of violence in the streets of Haiti as justification for the slow US response there, and the many bizarre responses to what
I don't do podcasts, but I will remark that the more biology that I read, the more that competition seem bizarre and cooperation seems the norm. Just ask our true overlords: the mitochondria.
--bks