That’d be consistent with cultural traditions like younger sons going into the clergy.
Do younger sons have extremely low evo fitness?
I think I’d have to see some really strong evidence of celibacy increasing genetic fitness, otherwise I’m just going to assume this is a case of memes overpowering genes. There could of course, for example, be a gene for religiousness that generally increases evo fitness, but occasionally causes someone to take a vow of celibacy. This would on average increase evo fitness.
I don’t know how exactly genes translate into behaviour. But I would guess that its possible for genes to code for religiousness, but coding for or against a religious vow of celibacy is impossible, as this is far too specific a behaviour.
That’s extremely culture-specific. I was talking about cultures like medieval European nobility, where you’d typically want an heir and a spare, both of whom you’d go to some effort to marry off, but where subsequent sons just got in the way and often ended up in the clergy. Other cultures would have their own analogous situations.
At the gene level, what I’m talking about wouldn’t look like something that universally codes for a +kin, -self fertility tradeoff regardless of environment; for more or less the reasons you gave in the grandparent that’s quite unlikely to be selected for. But if you throw environmental interactions into the mix you can do more interesting things. One pathway for example might start by modulating hormone levels in response to mate availability, for example to encourage higher-risk mating strategies in rich environments. That gives the biochemistry something it can work with, and opens up more complicated strategies, some of which might include kin-centric strategies gated by specific hormone levels.
Even that isn’t going to look like a gene coding for a vow of celibacy. But it might translate to a vow of celibacy given a certain cultural context and personal history.
Do younger sons have extremely low evo fitness?
I think I’d have to see some really strong evidence of celibacy increasing genetic fitness, otherwise I’m just going to assume this is a case of memes overpowering genes. There could of course, for example, be a gene for religiousness that generally increases evo fitness, but occasionally causes someone to take a vow of celibacy. This would on average increase evo fitness.
I don’t know how exactly genes translate into behaviour. But I would guess that its possible for genes to code for religiousness, but coding for or against a religious vow of celibacy is impossible, as this is far too specific a behaviour.
That’s extremely culture-specific. I was talking about cultures like medieval European nobility, where you’d typically want an heir and a spare, both of whom you’d go to some effort to marry off, but where subsequent sons just got in the way and often ended up in the clergy. Other cultures would have their own analogous situations.
At the gene level, what I’m talking about wouldn’t look like something that universally codes for a +kin, -self fertility tradeoff regardless of environment; for more or less the reasons you gave in the grandparent that’s quite unlikely to be selected for. But if you throw environmental interactions into the mix you can do more interesting things. One pathway for example might start by modulating hormone levels in response to mate availability, for example to encourage higher-risk mating strategies in rich environments. That gives the biochemistry something it can work with, and opens up more complicated strategies, some of which might include kin-centric strategies gated by specific hormone levels.
Even that isn’t going to look like a gene coding for a vow of celibacy. But it might translate to a vow of celibacy given a certain cultural context and personal history.