A long while back, I read (and just now refound) an article about a biologist's take on cooperation and competition. David Sloan Wilson is quoted as saying "Selfishness beats altruism within groups, [but] altruistic groups beat selfish groups, and everything else is commentary."
A long while back, I read (and just now refound) an article about a biologist's take on cooperation and competition. David Sloan Wilson is quoted as saying "Selfishness beats altruism within groups, [but] altruistic groups beat selfish groups, and everything else is commentary."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/mar/06/david-sloan-...
Perhaps with sufficient intelligence and time, altruism/cooperation is discovered to be a better fit for any given environment, and that's passed on.