way to pull that out of your assjags wrote:all products of natural selection act in and only in a way that maximizes their own self-interest, no matter what.
just take your example of a soldier jumping on a grenade to sacrifice, it's a bit absurd to think that he's just doing it out of self interest so he can get a medal. i don't know about you, but if i was doing that, i wouldn't expect to survive. what good is being called virtuous if you're not alive to benefit from it?
not to mention that you're going with the bold assumption that altruism is a genetic trait... who's to say it's not an emergent phenomenon that comes from higher level thought (it's observed in humans but also often in "intelligent" animals like elephants, dolphins, etc). the higher level thought is selected for favorably because of its obvious advantages over basic thought, despite sometimes resulting in behavior that isn't always exclusively in self-interest
even if it was a genetic trait, there's a lot of genetic traits that exist because they are advantageous to carry and pass on to a relative, because a relative that expresses the gene will make the carrier and/or its offspring more likely to survive, despite not being of direct advantage to the person expressing the gene. that's basically the explanation of how homosexuality could have come to be through natural selection (ie, a "gay uncle" will make a sibling's offspring more likely to survive since they might be more likely to raise the children rather than produce their own offspring).
