Do you think that did not make clear the similarity between Omega and natural selection?
No, it did not. I see it now, but I did not see it at first. I think I understand why it was initially obvious to you but not to me. It all goes back to a famous 1964 paper in evolutionary theory by William Hamilton. His theory of kin selection.
Since Darwin, it has been taken as axiomatic that parents will care for children. Of course, they do, says the Darwinian. Children are the only thing that does matter. All organisms are mortal, their only hope for genetic immortality is by way of descendents.
The only reason the rabbit runs away from the fox is so it can have more children, sometime in the near future. So, as a Darwinian, I saw your attempt to justify parental care using Omega as just weird. We don’t need to explain that. It is just axiomatic.
Then along came Hamilton with the idea that taking care of descendants (children and grandchildren) is not the whole story. Organisms are also selected to take care of siblings, and cousins and nephews and nieces. That insight definitely was not part of standard received Darwinism. But Hamilton had the math to prove it. And, as Trivers and others pointed out, even the traditional activities of taking care of direct descendants should probably be treated as just one simple case of Hamilton’s more general theory.
Ok, that is the background. I hope it is now clear if I say that the reason I did not see parental care as an example of a “Parfitian filter” is exactly like the reason traditional Darwinists did not at first see parental care as just one more example supporting Hamilton’s theory. They didn’t get that point because they already understood parental care without having to consider this new idea.
Okay, thanks for explaining that. I didn’t intend for that explanation of parental behavior to be novel (I even said it was uncontroversial), but rather, to show it as a realistic example of a Parfitian filter, which motivates the application to morality. In any case, I added a note explicitly showing the parallel between Omega and natural selection.
No, it did not. I see it now, but I did not see it at first. I think I understand why it was initially obvious to you but not to me. It all goes back to a famous 1964 paper in evolutionary theory by William Hamilton. His theory of kin selection.
Since Darwin, it has been taken as axiomatic that parents will care for children. Of course, they do, says the Darwinian. Children are the only thing that does matter. All organisms are mortal, their only hope for genetic immortality is by way of descendents. The only reason the rabbit runs away from the fox is so it can have more children, sometime in the near future. So, as a Darwinian, I saw your attempt to justify parental care using Omega as just weird. We don’t need to explain that. It is just axiomatic.
Then along came Hamilton with the idea that taking care of descendants (children and grandchildren) is not the whole story. Organisms are also selected to take care of siblings, and cousins and nephews and nieces. That insight definitely was not part of standard received Darwinism. But Hamilton had the math to prove it. And, as Trivers and others pointed out, even the traditional activities of taking care of direct descendants should probably be treated as just one simple case of Hamilton’s more general theory.
Ok, that is the background. I hope it is now clear if I say that the reason I did not see parental care as an example of a “Parfitian filter” is exactly like the reason traditional Darwinists did not at first see parental care as just one more example supporting Hamilton’s theory. They didn’t get that point because they already understood parental care without having to consider this new idea.
Okay, thanks for explaining that. I didn’t intend for that explanation of parental behavior to be novel (I even said it was uncontroversial), but rather, to show it as a realistic example of a Parfitian filter, which motivates the application to morality. In any case, I added a note explicitly showing the parallel between Omega and natural selection.