Friendship in evolution

[Adama]

How does evolution resolve friendship? Presumably if a person is not from your immediate tribe, or isnt a relative, he should be your enemy, not your friend, because he is a competitor for resources.

How does evolution resolve friendship?

[Ghost]

The popular notion of evolution is that it is all about competition and is dog-eat-dog. The phrase "survival of the fittest" was coined by an economist, not by Darwin. Anthropologists and biologists understand the importance of cooperation. Friendship isn't a problem for evolution. It fits in fine. Cooperation works better overall for securing resources, and generally making life easier and better for all involved. Look at the republican eras of empires throughout history. Those eras were when levels of trust and cooperation were high. Later in their empire phases trust is broken down and those societies become dog-eat-dog (pure competition) and a gradual collapse happens. Those societies were too big to be considered tribes of course, yet trust/friendship/comradeship etc. was possible and those societies used it to become great.

[publicduende]

Very good thread, not sure why it's not attracting more posts. I agree with Ghosts, cooperation between individuals of a species (as opposed to "homo homini lupus", "dog eat dog" behaviour) is not against biology at all.

Very few species can survive, let alone build something remotely useful or lasting for the future generations, if the focus of their existence is mere self-preservation. At the very least, there is a strong protection instinct towards the female(s) he has chosen for mating, and then the offspring.