Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

The fitness of an individual is usually expressed as relative fitness, i.e. related to average or maximal fitness of other members of the population. At first sight, it may seem that it is not necessary to distinguish strictly whether a particular behavior pattern (trait) heightens the fitness of its bearer or lowers the fitness of other individuals in the population. However, reality is somewhat different mainly for one reason: while behavior that heightens individual fitness is useful only for the bearer of this behavior, behavior that lowers the fitness of other individuals is useful for other members of the population as well, specifically for those individuals, against whom this behavior is not employed. If the given behavior that lowers the fitness of others constitutes a certain burden for its bearer, which probably frequently occurs, then this behavior is more useful for those others who are not burdened by it. Such a trait can, of course, hardly be fixed in the population by the usual evolutionary mechanisms.

Principally, it seems useful to define and characterize in detail three behavior categories here: selfish behavior, i.e. behavior that heightens the fitness of its bearer while it lowers (directly or indirectly) the fitness of other members of the population; altruistic behavior, i.e. behavior that heightens the fitness of other members of the population but lowers the fitness of its bearer and spiteful behavior, i.e. behavior that does not influence or slightly lowers the fitness of its bearer while it markedly lowers the fitness of other members of the population. Most common behavioral patterns belong to the category of selfish behavior. The origin of selfish behavioral patterns can be easily explained by the common mechanisms of natural selection. The other two categories, i.e. altruistic and spiteful behavior, require special evolutionary mechanisms to explain their origins.