In the News

Cooperation Counts

The work on cooperation of Harvard University mathematician and biologist Martin Nowak was featured in an October 15, 2007 article in The Boston Globe.  Nowak is at the cutting edge of evolutionary dynamics and his research on cooperation was recently featured on the cover of Nature.  Nowak's work has lead to findings that some would find surprising.  In the Boston Globe article Nowak is quoted as stating that "[t]he most competivie scenario of natural selection, where everybody competes with everybody else, can actually lead to features like generosity and forgiveness."

Mathematical Model for Cooperation

The work of Dr. Martin Nowak, director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University, was featured in a July 31, 2007, article in The New York Times entitled In Games, an Insight Into the Rules of Evolution. Nowak argues that cooperation is one of the three basic principles of evolution and has developed a mathematical model for conditions where cooperation will arise. According to Nowak, networks and reputation play important roles in the development of cooperation.

Neuroscience and Morality

A Wall Street Journal article entitled Scientists Draw Link Between Morality and Brain's Wiring (May 11, 2007), discusses experiments conducted by neuroscientists at Harvard, Caltech, and the University of Southern California on the neuroanatomy of emotion and moral judgment.  The experiments were conducted on people who had injured an area in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex several inches behind the brow that is thought to link emotion to cognition.  According to USC neuroscientist Antonion Damasio "[w]hen that influence is missing pure reason is set free."  Also mentioned was the work of Harvard neuroscientist Marc Hauser who presented on his moral-dilemma research at the 2006 Gruter Institute Conference in Squaw Valley.

Social Cooperation

In the Aug. 13, 2007, Times Science Notebook, Terence Kealey discusses several instances when social cooperation (sometimes in the form of collusion) has informally arisen. He contends that such cooperation occurs because humans are hard-wired to cooperate and to trust. In support of his contention he points to the fMRI research of James Rilling of Emory University and his paper "A Neural Basis for Social Cooperation" published in the journal Neuron.

The Prospects for Homo economicus

In a June 17, 2007, article entitled The Prospects for Homo economicus, published in Scientific American.com, Michael Shermer makes the pronouncement that "[h]omo economicus is extinct, felled by the new sciences of behavioral economics and neuoreconomics, which have demonstrated that we are remarkably irrational creatures."  In support of his statement, Shermer discusses in detail fMRI research conducted at UCLA on subjects facing decisions about gambles. A report on the research entitled "The Neural Basis of Loss Aversion in Decision-Making under Risk," was published in Science on January 26, 2007.  The research found that as the potential for gains rose, activity in the mesolimbic and mesocortical dopamine systems (reward sensitive areas) increased, but decreasing activity was seen in those same areas as the potential for losses increased.  It appears that the level of risk a person is comfortable with may be hardwired.