Guy Hoelzer wrote:

> 
> "It appears that" is the part that I consider to be
non-scientific.  Has
> there ever been any kind of systematic approach to confirming or rejecting
> the validity of this apparent situation?
> 

Yep.  Hamilton's kin calculus, and even better, Maynard Smith's notion
of EES (evolutionarily stable strategies), both of which predict "gene
selfishness", which nine times out of ten should translate into
selfishness of the more mundane variety:


    Like Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for
    millions of years, in a highly competitive world.  This entitles us to
    expect certain qualities in our genes.  I shall argue that a predominent
    quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness.
    This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual
    behavior.  However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in
    which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a
    limited form of altruism.  'Special' and 'limited' are important words
    in the last sentence.  Much as we might wish to believe otherwise,
    universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts
    which simply do not make evolutionary sense (Dawkins).


Perhaps you can read these words and convince yourself that human nature
conforms to the formal predictions of our mathematical models.  But
Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most preeminant spokesman of the century
on such matters considers the explanatory gap of sufficient magnitude
to warrant a full blown ADDENDUM to the theory of natural selection,
one which would in all likelihood allow for a bit of genetic indeterminism
in the mix:

   I think we have got to start again and go right
   back to first principles.  The argument I shall advance,
   surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the
   earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the
   evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the
   gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution.  I am an
   enthusiastic Darwinian, but I think Darwinism is too big a
   theory to be donfined to the narrow context of the gene.  The
   gene will enter my thesis as an analogy, nothing more.
   (Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p. 205).


PR
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