Misinformation, Fitness, and Selection

The evolutionary genetics of misinforming or lying has been explored. Inasmuch as an accurate appraisal of one's environment is essential for high fitness, misinformation that is transmitted from one individual to a second lowers the second's fitness. Proof has been offered that misinformation that is only slightly misleading has about a 50:50 chance of raising the recipient's fitness; hence, to be effective a lie must be grossly misinformative. The existence of certain meaningless rituals that might be thought of as misinformative can be explained by kin or group selection. During the initial stages of selection, according to the model presented here, the gene in question is favored because relatives are not misled as are other members of the population (fig. 2b). Later, when the allele has increased in frequency, not only relatives but also nonrelatives possessing the given allele fail to be misled by the bearer of the gene. Thus, although certain rituals may indeed start their existence as examples of willfully transmitted misinformation, their incorporation into the overall species behavior makes this description superfluous.