Humans, by nature, are an altruistic species. Unless we're affected by
a mental illness, most of us feel bad about doing bad things and good about
doing good things. We live by morals and we help our own, and this is
especially true regarding our treatment of our elderly. We do our best to make
sure Grandma and Grandpa are comfortable and taken care of, if not in our own
homes, than with trusted medical staff. We don't always succeed in getting them
the best treatment, but we try our hardest, with the best intentions. The topic
on my mind today is, is this exclusively a human behavior, or is it a 'thing'
across the animal kingdom? And if so, why? We have seen in class that animals
have developed altruistic behavior in order to help relatives reproduce, but
that is a different scenario. I'm not saying we should neglect old people; that
would be terrible, but what, if it exists, is the advantage of altruism toward
members of the species that are no longer reproductive?
After Googling around, I stumbled upon the expert opinion of
evolutionary biologist Dana Krempels, who confirms that this behavior is indeed
rare. Humans live in relative luxury and have no natural predators, so we can
afford to practice behaviors that would be maladaptive in a hostile environment
where the danger of predators lurks around every corner. Interestingly, though,
in some cases altruism towards the elderly does develop in animals that have a
sophisticated social order. Read more about it here.
-Mindy MacKay
-Mindy MacKay
Great question! I guess you could say I was motivated, or even inspired, by this topic and decided to delve a little deeper. Compassion is, indeed, a uniquely human characteristic. You can see what else I found in my post "So That's Why They Call it Humanity".
ReplyDeleteFollowing the video in today's class, perhaps it is due to our verbal capabilities. Since we are able to pass on knowledge through communication, perhaps we are one of the few species to recognize the value of accumulated knowledge and initially cared for old people to obtain knowledge for survival of the population as a whole. Also, although we may be nice to old people, we only go out of our way for kin, so we might be back to the idea of kin selection, instead of blanket altruism.
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