Altruism: Wrong Brain Wiring?
Altruism, or self-sacrifice for people other than one’s own kin, is usually,
though not always, related to spiritual beliefs; for example, Mother Teresa’s
image routinely appears in articles devoted to studying altruism. Altruism
is easier to study directly than spirituality, precisely because it is a behavior
that can be studied apart from a belief system. So how does evolutionary
psychology account for altruism? As science writer Mark Buchanan explains
in New Scientist, “In evolutionary terms it is a puzzle because any
organism that helps others at its own expense stands at an evolutionary
disadvantage. So if many people really are true altruists, as it seems, why
haven’t greedier, self-seeking competitors wiped them out?”3
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