http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/2012/07/09/the-good-fight/

Prominent scientists are in a bitter struggle over the origins of kindness. But the root of this conflict may be the most ironic part of all.

What would it take for you to give your life to save another? The answer of course is two siblings or eight cousins, that is, if you’re thinking like a geneticist. This famous quip, attributed to the British biologist J.B.S. Haldane, is based on the premise that you share on average 50% of your genes with a brother or sister and 12.5% with a cousin. For altruism to be worth the cost it should ensure that you break even, genetically speaking.

This basic idea was later formalized by the evolutionary theorist William Hamilton as “inclusive fitness theory” that extended Darwin’s definition of fitness–the total number of offspring produced–to also include the offspring of close relatives. Hamilton’s model has been highly influential, particularly for Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins who spent considerable time discussing its implications in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. But in the last few years an academic turf war has developed pitting the supporters of inclusive fitness theory (better known as kin selection) against a handful of upstarts advocating what is known as group selection, the idea that evolutionary pressures act not only on individual organisms but also at the level of the social group.

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I think the confusion that arises here is due to the combining of traits inherited from earlier species with traits dependent on the modern human brain and its novel powers. Our altruism is due to intuitive kin selection operating in earlier species, but now widened due to the ability of the human imagination to include larger categories in the concept of “kin”.

It’s a big topic and one that makes you think.
Imagine the first catapilla that decided to change into a moth to save from getting eaten by birds.

C1 -: You know what C2, I’m sick of just sitting around eating mulberry leaves and waiting to get eaten by a bird
C2 -: Nothing you can do about it.
C1 -: Well I’m going to wrap myself in silk and turn into a moth with wings and everything.
C2 -: He’s f’ing really lost it this time.

Peak Warming Man said:

Imagine the first catapilla that decided to change into a moth to save from getting eaten by birds.

Birds eat moths too.

>>Birds eat moths too.

Damn!!