Word: kins
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...criticizing the behavior of students during the Harvard-Yale game two years ago, the Boston Police Department (BPD) was livid about what it felt were widespread incidents of “public urination.” Then, we defended our kin by pointing to the dearth of available Port-a-Potties. That excuse didn’t fly then, and, apparently, it won’t have to now. We have been assured as we head into this 123rd Game that Ohiri Field will be fully lined with public toilets. Let’s use them. More than that, while...
...country after Mexico City. It's as if San Antonio, Texas, went on to become Pittsburgh, Pa., skipping the Rust Belt phase. This city of nearly 4 million, often confused by Americans with its California namesake, is, after all, still in its ascendancy, and--like Texas, its closest American kin--it has tall ambitions that may prove critical to how Mexico as a whole develops. Or maybe...
...reproducing? Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that they will help us later. But when you look at what we admire as the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers. That's the opposite of saving his genes. We see less dramatic versions every day. Many of us think these qualities may come from God--especially since...
...genes. Copulation in nature tends to lead to reproduction and so to more genetic copies. But in modern society, most copulations involve contraception, designed precisely to avoid reproduction. Altruism probably has origins like those of lust. In our prehistoric past, we would have lived in extended families, surrounded by kin whose interests we might have wanted to promote because they shared our genes. Now we live in big cities. We are not among kin nor people who will ever reciprocate our good deeds. It doesn't matter. Just as people engaged in sex with contraception are not aware of being...
...Dawkins explains that morality developed in a similar vein. Morality—in the form of kindness, altruism, generosity, empathy, and pity—is nothing more than “misfirings, Darwinian mistakes: blessed, precious mistakes,” he explains. Morality is the by-product of kin altruism, which was once beneficial to the survival of our prehistoric ancestors. Unlike religion however, morality is a beneficial result of evolution...