23 November 2017
Container Conference Room, IIASA
All Staff Lecture "Natural Cooperation" by Prof. Martin Nowak
Abstract - Natural Cooperation
Cooperation implies that one individual pays a cost for another to receive a benefit. Cooperation can be at variance with natural selection. Why should you help competitors? Yet cooperation is abundant in nature and is an important component of evolutionary innovation. Cooperation is a master architect of evolution and can be seen as the third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and selection.
Nowak will present five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation: direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, spatial selection, group selection and kin selection. He will also discuss global cooperation and cooperation with the future.
About Martin Nowak
Martin Nowak is Professor of Mathematics and of Biology at Harvard University. He studied at the University of Vienna. He was a doctoral student of Karl Sigmund and a young scientist at IIASA. He held appointments at the University of Oxford and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Prof. Nowak works on the mathematical description of biology. His contributions include evolution of cooperation, of language, of eusociality, adaptive dynamics, dynamics of viral infections and cancer. He is the author of four books and over 400 scientific papers.
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