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abiola meinte am 23. Aug, 01:28:
A Question
This material is certainly interesting, but I don't see any mention of inclusive fitness anywhere in it, nor do I see how one would go about fitting it in. From a gene's eye point of view, the name of the game with evolution is the maximization of inclusive fitness, and therefore "cheating" makes no sense in a population that is genetically identical or very close to it, as is the case with organisms like viruses which reproduce asexually, and this is in no way dependent on whether or not viruses are regarded as intentional creatures able to "play" strategies: in fact, the text you quote explicitly mentions "males", "females" and "copulations", none of which have any applicability to the organisms under study. 
HedgeFundGuy antwortete am 23. Aug, 02:12:
I'm confused by the mention of sex and viruses, perhaps the quote was taken out of context. But is it true that asexual organisms cannot pursue selfish strategies, or to rephrase it, is it probable that no asexual organism has an ESS with a mixed strategy (ie, to sometimes behave differently than its twins)? 
abiola antwortete am 23. Aug, 02:44:
Yes, It's True
Epigenetic differences due to the environment aside, there's really no reason why clone organisms should pursue selfish strategies at each others' expense. In fact, it was to precisely to explain the existence of seemingly altruistic behavior amongst eusocial insects that W.D. Hamilton first put forward the fitness-maximization theory to begin with: thanks to haplodiploidy, it makes sense for worker ants or bees to devote their energies to raising the offspring of their queen rather than raising their own, as they will be more closely related to her children (75%) than they would any they could bear themselves (50%). The unit of selection in nature does indeed seem to be the gene rather than the organism, so no purpose is served if clones behave selfishly towards one another. See the work of Robert Trivers (e.g. this paper) for some examples of these ideas in practice. 

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