If psychopathy is a unmitigated survival advantage, then the question must be asked why non-psychopathy seem to have had much greater success as in indicated by its much greater prevalence.
There are many ways a gene or trait can affect it’s own chances of survival. Some can be sharp and direct, such as enabling its carrier to be stronger, faster, more devious, but others can interact with other genes or carriers of other genes, be very subtle and diffused, such as the gene that makes some one devious also cause his entire clan to become more distrusted.
Here lies in a divergence between how we tend to deduce the survival value of a trait or gene, and how natural selection does it. We tend to emphasize sharp and direct effects, because these are easy to detect and catalogue and easy to model and quantify. We tend to put little stock in diffuse and indirect effects, because these are difficult and unrealizable to model.
But natural selection doesn’t rely on modeling and doesn’t care whether an effect is easy or difficult to model. It treats feels fully the impact of all effects direct or indirect.
Our best indicator of the overall effect of a trait is therefore not whether it appears to us the gene is beneficial for its own survival, but how widespread is a gene amongst the population and whether genetic evidence suggest the gene or trait has become more widespread or have been reduced in its frequency of occurrence in a population.
When looking at it this way, it becomes clear psychopathy and excessive promiscuity can’t be as beneficial as some might think.
There are many ways a gene or trait can affect it’s own chances of survival. Some can be sharp and direct, such as enabling its carrier to be stronger, faster, more devious, but others can interact with other genes or carriers of other genes, be very subtle and diffused, such as the gene that makes some one devious also cause his entire clan to become more distrusted.
Here lies in a divergence between how we tend to deduce the survival value of a trait or gene, and how natural selection does it. We tend to emphasize sharp and direct effects, because these are easy to detect and catalogue and easy to model and quantify. We tend to put little stock in diffuse and indirect effects, because these are difficult and unrealizable to model.
But natural selection doesn’t rely on modeling and doesn’t care whether an effect is easy or difficult to model. It treats feels fully the impact of all effects direct or indirect.
Our best indicator of the overall effect of a trait is therefore not whether it appears to us the gene is beneficial for its own survival, but how widespread is a gene amongst the population and whether genetic evidence suggest the gene or trait has become more widespread or have been reduced in its frequency of occurrence in a population.
When looking at it this way, it becomes clear psychopathy and excessive promiscuity can’t be as beneficial as some might think.
