Genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation

Contemporary thinking in evolutionary biology is that competition among individuals is the key to understanding natural selection.

When competition exists, it is obvious that conflict arises; the emergence of co-operation, however, is less straightforward and calls for analysis.

Much research is now focused on defining and expanding the evolutionary models of co-operation.

Understanding the mechanisms of co-operation has relevance for fields other than biology.

Anthropology, economics, mathematics, political science, primatology and psychology are adopting the evolutionary approach and developing analogies based on it.

Similarly, biologists use elements of economic game theory and analyse co-operation in "evolutionary games".

Despite this, exchanges between researchers in these different disciplines have been limited.

Seeking to fill this gap, the 90th Dahlem Workshop was convened.

This book, which grew out of that meeting, addresses such topics as emotions in human co-operation, reciprocity, biological markets, co-operation and conflict in multi-cellularity, genomic and intercellular co-operation, the origins of human co-operation and the cultural evolution of co-operation.