Cooperation is a Major Force for Evolution
Summary
Inclusive fitness suggests that evolution can favor creatures that do not reproduce, so long as they assist in the survival and reproduction of relatives who carry the same genes – for example, the sterile workers in an ant colony, who help the queen to raise their sisters.To understand sacrifice and acts of kindness to nonrelatives and to complete strangers, however, Nowak ostensibly agrees with evolutionary biologist and renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins, that there could be lingering cooperative genes carried over from when survival stemmed more from the capacity to live harmoniously in clans.Novak writes, “At the heart of a successful mathematical model is a law of nature, an expression of truth that is capable of generating awe in the same way as Michaelangelo’s extraordinary sculptures, whose power to amaze comes from the truth they capture about physical beauty.” New York, NY, March 12, 2012 --( PR.com )-- This time last year, Martin Novak, Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics and Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard University, published a controversial book called, Super Cooperators, (Altruism, Evolution and Why we Need Each Other to Succeed) arguing that cooperation is as much a driving force for evolution as mutation and natural selection.Evolution therefore, is more of a mathematical by-product than a goal.Even kin selection, which includes nepotism or sacrifices for the survival of a relative, has a pragmatic explanation, such as embedded chemical triggers to promote one’s genes: strip the lamb of its scent and its mother will let it die.Cover an orphaned lamb in the placenta of a ewe’s offspring and she will adopt it as its own.To understand sacrifice and acts of kindness to nonrelatives and to complete strangers, however, Nowak ostensibly agrees with evolutionary biologist and renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins, that there could be lingering cooperative genes carried over from when survival stemmed more from the capacity to live harmoniously in clans.