Individual generosity and collective survival are not opposed in evolution

Evidence

The gift of abundance from pecans is also a gift to themselves. By sating squirrels and people, the trees are ensuring their own survival. The genes that translate to mast fruiting flow on evolutionary currents into the next generations, while those that lack the ability to participate will be eaten and reach an evolutionary dead end. Just so, people who know how to read the land for nuts and carry them home to safety will survive the February blizzards and pass on that behavior to their progeny, not by genetic transmission but by cultural practice. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 66

Categorization

• DEFINE: Kimmerer here defines a reciprocity-based reading of evolutionary fitness, braiding the Indigenous ethic with Western biology in a single causal frame.
• ADDENDUM: Directly supplies the mechanism of mutualist reciprocity — trees feeding predators to guarantee their own genes — useful for the trees-as-infrastructure piece’s grafting-as-metaphor thread.
• XREF: connects to: Group living evolves by suppressing self-interest into obligated interdependence — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 905; Morality evolves from individual partner-choice competition, not group selection. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 605; Morality evolved because fair partners were preferred in cooperative interactions — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 4

Broader Connections

• Morality evolves from individual partner-choice competition, not group selection. #qualifies (0.85) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 605
• Morality evolved because fair partners were preferred in cooperative interactions #corroborates (0.82) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 4
• Group living evolves by suppressing self-interest into obligated interdependence #corroborates (0.80) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 905