Music Banter - View Single Post

Guybrush · 05-28-2021, 08:05 AM

Yes I am or used to be some 10ish years ago. From what I can remember, social hymenopterans like ants or honey bees are fully explained by what you might call selfish gene theory (or rather kin selection).

The thing about these hymenopterans is they have a strange way to determine sex. We humans are diploid, meaning we have one set of genes from mom and one from dad (23 chromosomes from each).

If you do some maths in your head, that means parents are 50% related to their children. Keeping it a bit simple and ignoring things like mDNA, siblings from same parents could theoretically be 0% related (they got the other half from each parent) to 100% related. On average, they will be about 50% related.

For hymenopterans, it's not like this. What makes a male a male is that he is haploid - he has only one set of chromosomes and half the total of his diploid mother or sisters. His mother, the queen, doesn't even need a father to produce males, hence them missing the father part of the chromosomes.

When the queen has sex with a male, he only has one set of chromosomes to pass down. Every one of his sperms will be the same. That means that his daughters will always contain the same set of chromosomes from dad and be at least 50% related. Then they will also share some of the genes that mom pass down, on average 50% of those. Mom's contribution is 50% of the chromosomes, so 50% of 50% is 25%.

This means female worker bees/ants are on average 75% related.

If a worker bee would have a child of her own, she would only be 50% related to it. But if her mom produces another sister, that sister will be 75% related to her. So from the perspective of the selfish genes that inhabit a worker bee, it makes more sense in terms of fitness benefit to make sure the queen produces more siblings. It's better than sex. Hence, what may look like altruism is just selfishness in disguise and something that can lead to a high level of cooperation. Even if the worker bee dies, she can potentially have a huge fitness gain if her sacrifice ensured mom's continued baby making.

Writing on my phone, so sorry if it's nearly all typos

also sorry if this is all old news, but I personally haven't seen this refuted.

05-28-2021, 08:05 AM	#2 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	Yes I am or used to be some 10ish years ago. From what I can remember, social hymenopterans like ants or honey bees are fully explained by what you might call selfish gene theory (or rather kin selection). The thing about these hymenopterans is they have a strange way to determine sex. We humans are diploid, meaning we have one set of genes from mom and one from dad (23 chromosomes from each). If you do some maths in your head, that means parents are 50% related to their children. Keeping it a bit simple and ignoring things like mDNA, siblings from same parents could theoretically be 0% related (they got the other half from each parent) to 100% related. On average, they will be about 50% related. For hymenopterans, it's not like this. What makes a male a male is that he is haploid - he has only one set of chromosomes and half the total of his diploid mother or sisters. His mother, the queen, doesn't even need a father to produce males, hence them missing the father part of the chromosomes. When the queen has sex with a male, he only has one set of chromosomes to pass down. Every one of his sperms will be the same. That means that his daughters will always contain the same set of chromosomes from dad and be at least 50% related. Then they will also share some of the genes that mom pass down, on average 50% of those. Mom's contribution is 50% of the chromosomes, so 50% of 50% is 25%. This means female worker bees/ants are on average 75% related. If a worker bee would have a child of her own, she would only be 50% related to it. But if her mom produces another sister, that sister will be 75% related to her. So from the perspective of the selfish genes that inhabit a worker bee, it makes more sense in terms of fitness benefit to make sure the queen produces more siblings. It's better than sex. Hence, what may look like altruism is just selfishness in disguise and something that can lead to a high level of cooperation. Even if the worker bee dies, she can potentially have a huge fitness gain if her sacrifice ensured mom's continued baby making. Writing on my phone, so sorry if it's nearly all typos also sorry if this is all old news, but I personally haven't seen this refuted. __________________ Something Completely Different Last edited by Guybrush; 05-30-2021 at 12:26 AM.