Kin Recognition - Criticism

Criticism

Leading inclusive fitness theorists such as Grafen have argued that the whole research program around kin recognition is somewhat misguided:

Do animals really recognise kin in a way that is different from the way they recognise mates, neighbours, and other organisms and objects?’. Certainly animals use recognition systems to recognise their offspring, their siblings and their parents. But to the extent that they do so in the same way that they recognise their mates and their neighbours, I feel it is unhelpful to say they have a kin recognition system.” (Grafen 1991, 1095)

Others have cast similar doubts over the enterprise:

he fact that animals benefit from engaging in spatially mediated behaviors is not evidence that these animals can recognize their kin, nor does it support the conclusion that spatially based differential behaviors represent a kin recognition mechanism (see also discussions by Blaustein, 1983; Waldman, 1987; Halpin 1991). In other words, from an evolutionary perspective it may well be advantageous for kin to aggregate and for individuals to behave preferentially towards nearby kin, whether or not this behaviour is the result of kin recognition per se” (Tang-Martinez 2001, 25)

However, recent evidence suggests that kin recognition can also be mediated by immunogenetic similarity of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). For a discussion of the interaction of these social and biological kin recognition factors see Lieberman, Tooby, and Cosmides (2007). Some have suggested that, as applied to humans, this nature-nurture interactionist perspective allows a synthesis between theories and evidence of social bonding and cooperation across the fields of evolutionary biology, psychology {attachment theory) and cultural anthropology (nurture kinship).