Let us clarify on the survey we posted one or two days ago. In our poster project, we disproved Wright's claim that humans are very greedy compared to social insects, when comparing altruistic behaviors. We proved that humans act altruistically as much or maybe even more that insects, but for different reasons. Humans have the ability to reason and unlike insects are not born into jobs for life. Location and culture have a large influence on the groups or people who humans act altruistically towards. To a certain extent, humans have the ability to choose which groups or persons they would act altruistically towards. One important factor, is that the people in our survey do not have survival at the top of their agenda. In the same idea, getting one's genes into the next generation is definitely not the number one priority with most people we will conduct our survey with. This is very important to remember when comparing insects to humans. To help explain this difference, we determined that insects and humans are at different "levels" (we use this term because of lack of another). These levels can not be compared as better than another; they must exist separately. However, by saying that humans and insects are at these levels, says a lot for how altruistically each acts towards its own species. So our thesis developed to be one that claims that humans are very altruistic and so are social insects (like bees). We have plenty of studies on social characteristics of organsims to help prove this. Our survey is going to demonstrate WHO humans have a tendancy to act altruisticly towards and to what EXTENT they do. If this doesn't make sense, please tell us or give us some help!
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