Co-operation
How co-operation between individuals emerges and can be maintained has been a key issue for evolutionary biologists ever since Darwin. Indeed, Lord May recently described this as ‘the most important unanswered question in evolutionary biology, and more generally in the social sciences.’
Centre members have made key contributions in this area, notably Gilbert Roberts with his theoretical models of competitive altruism and cooperation through interdependence, and John Lazarus with his investigations of the relationship of cooperation to ecology.
A celebrated experiment on the role of the feeling of being watched was carried out (unbeknown to most people) in our coffee room. The resulting paper by Melissa Bateson, Gilbert Roberts and Daniel Nettle provoked widespread interest and was on of the New York Times’ ideas of the year in 2006.
