REVISED: Suicide: "Mother, May I?"
 

I tried hard to put suicide onto an inclusive fitness platform. I failed but found some treasure, much like finding Jessica Alba in a mudhole! Treasure that hints the past 150 years of debates over saltations and increments was the product of instinct. More later!

JimB

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(REVISED) "Suicide: 'Mother, May I?'" Inclusive Fitness, Maternal Investment, and Regression to the Mean*

*Poster presentation at International Congress on Human Ethology, Detroit, MI, August 2006. 5400 words + 65 refs.

Suicide, like murder, occurs in patterns that suggest a psychological adaptation that might express inclusive fitness. On the other hand, some facts do not appear to fit easily with an inclusive fitness model and hint of more fundamental processes. (Suicide, for example, may be more likely if you are too smart.)

Newer understandings of emergent networks and power laws suggest that living outcomes are often not Gaussian: that is, there are more very high scores and very low ones than allowed by bell curves. Genetic partnerships may actually increase phenotypic variance in populations (a common outcome in bowling leagues or marriages). Implications: 1) our preference for averages and bell curves are consistent with an instinct and 2), suicide may be one of many ways that natural selection controls variation through a regression-to-the-mean.

You can die not only for being defective but also for being too good.

Copyright, James Brody, 2006, all rights reserved.

Re: REVISED: Suicide: "Mother, May I?"
 

JimB: Could you explain this statement further?

Re: REVISED: Suicide: "Mother, May I?"
 

In about 6000 words...send me an email address to jbrody@compuserve.com.

JB