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Evolution of Cooperation

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E. O. Wilson’s Theory of Everything - Magazine. At 82, the famed biologist E. O. Wilson arrived in Mozambique last summer with a modest agenda—save a ravaged park; identify its many undiscovered species; create a virtual textbook that will revolutionize the teaching of biology. Wilson’s newest theory is more ambitious still. It could transform our understanding of human nature—and provide hope for our stewardship of the planet. Howard French My first glimpse of E. Wilson’s head was cocked sharply downward as he walked, as if he suffered a neck condition.

Howard W. Full Screen Wilson, dressed in blue shirt and cap, exits his helicopter and prepares to greet village children (Howard W. Please use a JavaScript-enabled device to view this slideshow If one had to give E. Many more collecting forays would follow over the next two weeks, most of them more concerted than this. Gorongosa’s heavily wooded mountain of the same name was effectively incorporated into the park, by national decree, only last December. Howard Rheingold on collaboration. The Origin and Evolution of Cultures (Evolution and Cognition) (9780195181456): Robert Boyd, Peter J. Richerson. VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization. Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity. Dunbar's number. Robin Dunbar. Professor Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar (born 28 June 1947)[10][11] is a British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist and a specialist in primate behaviour.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] He is currently head of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford and is best known for formulating Dunbar's number,[5] a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".[22][23][24][25][26] Education[edit] He spent two years as a freelance science writer.[11] Academic career[edit] Dunbar's academic and research career includes the University of Bristol,[8] University of Cambridge from 1977 until 1982, and University College London from 1987 until 1994.

Dunbar is also a British Humanist Association Distinguished Supporter of Humanism. Awards and honours[edit] References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "DUNBAR, Prof. Symbiogenesis. Symbiogenesis is the merging of two separate organisms to form a single new organism. The idea originated with Konstantin Mereschkowsky in his 1926 book Symbiogenesis and the Origin of Species, which proposed that chloroplasts originate from cyanobacteria captured by a protozoan.[1] Ivan Wallin also supported this concept in his book "Symbionticism and the Origins of Species". He suggested that bacteria might be the cause of the origin of species, and that species creation may occur through endosymbiosis.

Today both chloroplasts and mitochondria are believed, by those who ascribe to the endosymbiotic theory, to have such an origin. A fundamental principle of modern evolutionary theory is that mutations arise one at a time and either spread through the population or not, depending on whether they offer an individual fitness advantage. See also[edit] Citations[edit] References[edit] Sapp J, Carrapiço F, Zolotonosov M (2002). Important publications[edit] Konstantin Mereschkowsky. SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed (9781439100189): Martin Nowak, Roger Highfield. Children, not chimps, prefer collaboration: Humans like to work together in solving tasks - chimps don't. Recent studies have shown that chimpanzees possess many of the cognitive prerequisites necessary for humanlike collaboration.

Cognitive abilities, however, might not be all that differs between chimpanzees and humans when it comes to cooperation. Researchers from the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the MPI for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen have now discovered that when all else is equal, human children prefer to work together in solving a problem, rather than solve it on their own. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, show no such preference according to a study of 3-year-old German kindergarteners and semi-free ranging chimpanzees, in which the children and chimps could choose between a collaborative and a non-collaboration problem-solving approach.

Human societies are built on collaboration. The research team presented 3-year-old German children and chimpanzees living in a Congo Republic sanctuary with a task that they could perform on their own or with a partner. Towards Realistic Models for Evolution of Cooperation. The five major approaches to answering how cooperation emerges and becomes stable in nature (Group Selection, Kinship Theory, Direct Reciprocity, Indirect Reciprocity, and Social Learning) might be improved by not presuming asexual and non-overlapping generations, simultaneous-play for every interaction, dyadic interactions, mostly predetermined and mistake-free behavior, discrete actions (cooperate or defect), and the trivial role of social structure and social learning of individuals. Keywords trust, reputation, reciprocity, evolution, cultural evolution, cooperation, competition, bioeconomy, altruism, agent-based model Publication Reference Published in/by MIT LCS Memorandum Date Findings Observer-based reciprocity relaxes the requirement that each individual's likelihood of cooperating be known globally by introducing randomly selected observers.