Altruism 1

Humans and many animals will endanger or even sacrifice their lives to
save another—sometimes the life of another species (a). Natural
selection, which evolutionists say selects individual characteristics,
should rapidly eliminate altruistic (self-sacrificing) “individuals.”
How could such risky, costly behavior ever be inherited? Its
possession tends to prevent the altruistic “individual” from passing
on its genes for altruism (b)?

a.	“... the existence of altruism between different species—which is
not uncommon—remains an obstinate enigma.” Taylor, p. 225.

Some inherited behavior is lethal to the animal but beneficial to
unrelated species. For example, dolphins sometimes protect humans from
deadly sharks. Many animals (goats, lambs, rabbits, horses, frogs,
toads) scream when a predator discovers them. This increases their
exposure but warns other species.

b.	From an evolutionist’s point of view, a very costly form of
altruism occurs when an animal forgoes reproduction while caring for
another individual’s young. This occurs in some human societies where
a man has multiple wives who share in raising the children of one
wife. More well-known examples include celibate individuals (such as
nuns and many missionaries) who devote themselves to helping others.
Such traits should never have evolved, or if they accidentally arose,
they should quickly die out.

Adoption is another example:

“From a Darwinian standpoint, going childless by choice is hard enough
to explain, but adoption, as the arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins notes,
is a double whammy. Not only do you reduce, or at least fail to
increase, your own reproductive success, but you improve someone
else’s. Since the birth parent is your rival in the great genetic
steeplechase, a gene that encourages adoption should be knocked out of
the running in fairly short order.”  Cleo Sullivan, “The Adoption
Paradox,” Discover, January 2001, p. 80.

Adoption is known even among mice, rats, skunks, llamas, deer,
caribou, kangaroos, wallabies, seals, sea lions, dogs, pigs, goats,
sheep, bears, and many primates. Altruism is also shown by some people
who have pets—a form of adoption—especially individuals who have pets
in lieu of having children.

Humans, vertebrates, and invertebrates frequently help raise the
unrelated young of others:


“...it is not clear that the degree of relatedness is consistently
higher in cooperative breeders than in other species that live in
stable groups but do not breed cooperatively. In many societies of
vertebrates as well as invertebrates, differences in contributions to
rearing young do not appear to vary with the relatedness of helpers,
and several studies of cooperative birds and mammals have shown that
helpers can be unrelated to the young they are raising and that the
unrelated helpers invest as heavily as close relatives.” Tim Clutton-
Brock, “Breeding Together: Kin Selection and Mutualism in Cooperative
Vertebrates,” Science, Vol. 296, 5 April 2002, p. 69.

Six different studies were cited in support of the conclusions above.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes12.html#wp1012249