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What makes people altruistic?

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The ever-entertaining New Scientist asks, in a review of Darwin-oriented books on the subject.

It reminds me of the question posed to Brendan Shanahan, Is hockey hard?

No. Yes. Maybe. You tell us. But we do it anyway, okay?

From the review:

Wilson’s fascinating gallop through religion, economics, politics and everyday life reveals many ways to activate altruism. Take his Neighborhood Project, where he designs environments to select for prosocial behaviour.

Question: Why don’t Wilson and the reviewer just mind their own business?

Your news writer, just for example, lives in a country with a high altruism rate and a low violence rate that D.S. Wilson did not design, so far as anyone knows. His absence doesn’t seem to have ever been considered a problem in that region of the world.

If a person were not committed to Darwinism as a creation story, it is possible that altruism would not be a problem that even needs explaining.

Put simply: What is the question you were looking for an answer to?

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