Altruistic Humans

Some people claim there's no such thing as pure altruism - humans just do selfless acts to make themselves feel good. I think this is bollocks - the evolutionary argument of fellow species preservation suggest altruism is a good thing. Now scientist have shed some more light on altruism:

Scientists say they have found the part of the brain that predicts whether a person will be selfish or an altruist.

Altruism - the tendency to help others without obvious benefit to oneself - appears to be linked to an area called the posterior superior temporal sulcus.

The participants were asked to disclose how often they engaged in different helping behaviours, such as doing charity work, and were also asked to play a computer game designed to measure altruism.

The study authors say their work could have important implications.

They are now exploring ways to study the development of this brain region in early life and believe such information may help determine how altruistic tendencies are established.

Interesting. Humans can be altruistic without the threat of burning in hell for all eternity. Who would have thought?