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Originally Posted by Jasper84  Genes being similar as causing why we respect things is not crazy, but what mechanism would you say causes that? Beyond recognizing mom/dad? I could not find any good reason why respect of other creatures would lie in evolution. |
because genes "whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation" are bound to become more ubiquitous than other genes.
a gene whose phenotypic effects would only promote its propagation in your close relatives or even species, would be at a disadvantage against a gene whose phenotypic effects would promote its propagation in every organism that exhibits the same phenotypic effects.
that is the reason we have those genes in the first place.
that is the reason we tend to favor creatures with similar traits while it wouldn't make sense if we were to look at evolution as species selection.