Squawk wrote:Thanks monsies. You are correct about my use of pseudo when referring to altruism. I'm unsure how best to phrase it though, I think altruism is one of those terms that is open to abuse or simple misunderstanding. To really refer to a given instance of altruism I suspect we would have to identify a given behaviour as altruistic at all levels of selection. As you point out, a behaviour can be altruistic at the group level, but selfish at the gene level. Is that action, then, altruistic?

It very well could be. Altruism usually defined at the level of the organism. It is "a behaviour which is costly to the actor and beneficial to the recipient, where cost and benefit are defined on the basis of the lifetime direct fitness consequences of a behaviour."
See paper here.

I'd go with no, in the strictest sense, but then I'm hardly qualified It's a quibble over semantics really, but I think it's an important quibble.

Don't fret. Biologists still quibble over semantics--and I'm sure some would even quibble over the definition I just cited. I think that what is important, is that you make clear on the outset of a discussion any terms which could be misunderstood. As per the review I have just cited, semantics is becoming a bit of an issue when biologists talk about altruism.