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Originally Posted by Boogster
To enlarge upon this
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It wasn't strangely worded at all, and is not a controversial concept in evolutionary circles.
Lets consider a mutation which encourages altruistic behaviour towards members of your immediate family.
There can be two results of this altruistic behaviour.
The first is that there is a significant benefit gained from the behaviour.
The second is that there is not, or an active hindrance.
If the former is the case, then the members of your immediate family are more likely to breed. There is a good chance of this gene being passed on to the subsequent generation, in which case the same argument applies - and, over time, if the benefit is sufficiently large, it will become fixed in the population, or the two subsets of the population will stop interbreeding and a new species will be formed over time.
If the second is the case, then the mutation will disadvantage the members of the population with it, which will lead to them breeding less and thus, over time, the mutation will be removed from the population (or simply remain in small amounts, if it is not sufficiently deleterious).
Look up the Florida Scrub Jays for a decent example of this behaviour - and note that this behaviour does not rely on you surviving, if your death gives a sufficiently large advantage to the rest of your family.
Do you see?