Talk:The Evolution of Cooperation

Opening comment
I don't know about U.S. publications but the UK penguin edition is entitled 'The Evolution of Co-operation' as opposed to 'The Evolution of Cooperation' as it is in this article. MagicBez 17:49, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Criticism: Neglects recognition/assessment of value of information
This is one of my favourite books with all sorts of potential for pragmatic ethics. One thing troubles me though: the exposition never addressed the question of the extent of knowledge available to the algorithms. Tit-for-Tat manages with the minimum on information; namely just he record of the last encounter with its (recognised) opponent. Its certainly possible that better results might be achieved by an algorithm with access to more complete information, such as:

1) record of encounters with this opponent

2) record of opponent's encounters (including with other participants)

3) record of encounters with all opponents

4) record of all encounters between any combination of opponents

5) points already acquired by the opponent

6) opponent's source code.

6 is an extreme case where it is very obvious that the information would lead to improved results. The value of information in other case, while certainly less blatant, can still be supported by compelling arguments:

2 may be partially comparable to 6, in that in many cases it may be possible to reverse engineer a opponent's algorithm. Also, some combinations of the information above would add to an algorithms's knowledge of the make up of the algorithm population. For instance, it would help in quickly establishing a reliable assessment of the proportion of nice algorithms (cf Axelrod's use of this term), allowing one's own algorithm to make global adjustments as appropriate. 5 is useful as an input to decisions on disruptive behaviour ("stop the leader" - in games where a algorithm is more interested in finishing first than in attaining a high point total) and might also serve as a single parameter estimate of an opponent's non-cooperativeness and/or exploitability.

The potential for using information about the opponent algorithm's performance in a variety of ways to enhance one's own algorithm's performance seems fairly transparent, and it is surprising that this is neglected. Another interesting field of study would be to assess the value of certain types of information. What would be a fair handicap for an algorithm to accept (in negative starting points) for certain types of information delivered at certain times.

The above comments, intended as criticisms on Axelrod's book, may also qualify as original research. Hence my reluctance to introduce them into the article. However I'd very much welcome responses from Wikipedians with similar interests/insights..

--Philopedia 18:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

link to journal article
Need specific author link

Can anyone provide a link to the mentioned journal article.Kendirangu 10:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

"a 1981 paper by political scientist Robert Axelrod and evolutionary biologist William Hamilton (Axelrod & Hamilton 1981) in the scientific literature" The "William Hamilton" link is to a disambiguation page rather than the specific person who co-authored that paper. Somebody who knows which person it really was, please fix that link.

198.144.192.45 (talk) 13:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC) Robert Maas = Twitter.Com/CalRobert

Notice of intent to do major overhaul and augmentation.
In case anyone would like to warn me off: I am intending to do a major overhaul and augmentation of this article. An initial version can be seen [|here] (if that server hasn't crashed). I hope this will be satisfactory to all concerned. J. Johnson (talk) 23:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I think the major work is done, with no major major problems. Could use some images - anyone have any ideas as to what kind of images would be useful? J. Johnson (talk) 22:11, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * "a 1981 paper by political scientist Robert Axelrod and evolutionary biologist William Hamilton (Axelrod & : Hamilton 1981) in the scientific literature"
 * The "William Hamilton" link is to a disambiguation page rather than the specific person who co-authored that paper. Somebody who knows which person it really was, please fix that link. (I can only guess that it might be W. D. Hamilton (1936-2000) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._Hamilton) 198.144.192.45 (talk) 13:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC) Robert Maas = Twitter.Com/CalRobert


 * You are quite right. I have made the correction.  Thank you for pointing this out. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for fixing the problem after I found the oversight, and thanks for replying to me and thanking me for finding the oversight.

I wish we could all get somehow "paid" for proofreading (spotting mistakes as I did) and fixing mistakes (as you did), as well as writing original content, instead of everything being (unpaid) volunteer labor and berzerkers paying no price for their anti-work.

As part of my NewEco project, I'm thinking of setting up a new kind of pseudo-Wiki where all edits are *moderated* by a RevTre and evaluated for correctness by a TruFut. Contributors would get paid per NewEco for all contributions, but when posting an edit must put 10% of the maximum payment into escroll in case the edit is utter crap. Thus each contributor gets paid 100% for perfect work, is penalized 10% for total crap, and semi-good contributions are interpolated between -10% and +100% per result of TruFut valuation.

Is there any interest in such thoughts/ideas within the rest of the Wiki community, or am I the only person who thinks such an idea would be of any value? If others like the idea, where is the appropriate place to discuss the topic?

Note: Prepend "TinyURL.Com/" in front of those code-words NewEco etc. to get the URL where I define each of those parts of the overall NewEco system I'm building. 198.144.192.45 (talk) 08:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC) Twitter.Com/CalRobert (Robert Maas) 198.144.192.45 (talk) 08:47, 18 April 2010 (UTC) Twitter.Com/CalRobert (Robert Maas)


 * These comments are totally off-topic. I'd suggest finding a better location, where any folks interested in your idea might actually be watching. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)

NPOV tag
I've added the NPOV tag to the article. In parts, it is written like a pamphlet. This may just reflect the style of the authors of the book, but is still inappropriate for the article.—Graf Bobby (talk) 14:11, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Could you provide some details, like which parts seem deficient, and in what manner?  I may be standing too close to the topic to have a clear view, so a careful explantion would be appreciated.  J. Johnson (talk) 21:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The whole Social Darwinism vs. Mutual Aid section. To a lesser degree, the two subsequent sections (The Social Contract and Altruism and cooperation), and parts of Axelrod's Tournaments, for example the fourth paragraph ("While rightists could well take a lesson here that being "nice" can be beneficial, leftists should note that nice can lead to being suckered.").


 * The article seems to argue that Darwin and Ayn Rand prefer the merciless struggle, Hobbes, Rousseau and Melville could imagine cooperation only if forced from above, and then comes along Axelrod and disproves both sides. I don't know if that is actually the message of the book, since I haven't read it. It's not only a problem of POV, also of style; if the article were about a fictional theme, I'd say it was written in-universe.—Graf Bobby (talk) 13:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the particulars. I am not certain what to make of them, so will have to ponder on this for a while.  I suspect it may be a POV issue.  E.g., is it not true that the Social Darwinians adhere to a merciless struggle view?  (I thought that was fairly self-evident, but even so I did cite a source.)  The point of view I took is not that they are wrong (or even that Axelrod "disproved" anyone - I would say that he did not) but that Axelrod has shown another approach.  Is there any kind of problem with that approach? J. Johnson (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The passages that mention Ayn Rand imply (without saying overtly) that Rand's rule is "never do anyone a favor." Her heroes in Atlas Shrugged (that's almost all I've read of hers) put themselves in danger to help someone, even a stranger, if doing so will help their cause.  —Tamfang (talk) 05:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I keep looking at this, but, sorry, I just cannot see that there is any such implication. Nor even how such an implication (if there was such), or anything else in the article, in any way violates NPOV. You seem to feel a conflict between some examples from Atlas Shrugged and some aspect of the article. Perhaps it would help to note that (as far as I know) Rand had no problem with "strategic" (I think that was her word) arrangements of a cooperative nature. Provided, just as you said, "if doing so will help their cause". This is the essence of her "enlightened self-interest" – not "never do anyone a favor", but never "do a favor" without some benefit to oneself. This is the precise distinction between altruism and cooperation. (I discussed this in a subsequent section. Perhaps it is not clear enough?)

Again, I keep looking at this, but I do not see any violation of NPOV. Perhaps you could reassess whether you really see non-neutrality (or bias, or any other problem), or if there is some other reason why this seems to not sit well with you. And if there are any places that are simply confusing or not clear enough, please let me know and I will try to improve them. J. Johnson (talk) 01:20, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * My main problem with the article is that it presents Axelrod's concept of cooperation out of self-interest as something new when it isn't. ... [This discussion of "comparative advantage" moved to separate section, below. J. Johnson (talk) 22:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)]

This is not about the significance of Axelrod's work, it is about the way his thoughts and his significance is presented in the article.

Take in comparison the articles about Ayn Rand and Objectivism. They present her thoughts and believes as exactly that, usually preceded with phrases like "Rand held", "Rand believed", or "Objectivism states". Her view of Kant is quoted verbatim, the article doesn't present it as a fact that he was full of hatred of the innocent, the strong, the able, the successful, the virtuous, the confident, the happy.

The Evolution of Cooperation article does a fairly good job at describing what Axelrod did, but as soon as it gets to his conclusions (i.e. the three sections Social Darwinism vs. Mutual Aid, The Social Contract, Altruism and cooperation) it becomes a sensationally written pamphlet that rarely quotes Axelrod (only once!) but lots of others whose relevance to the topic is not always clear.


 * Did he explicitely refer to "Social Darwinists"? If so, why give Bowler's definition and not Axelrod's? Or did one explicitely relate to the other? Unlikely, since both books are from 1984. So what's Bowler's relevance to the topic at all?
 * Did he refer to the other quoted authors? Are the quotes from his book? If not, how are they relevant here?

The section Axelrod's Tournaments quite well shows his concepts, with quotes, but still gives a POV and sometimes sensational impression. Phrases like these don't belong into an encyclopedical article outside verbatim quotes:


 * There is a profound lesson here
 * While rightists could well take a lesson here that being "nice" can be beneficial, leftists should note that nice can lead to being suckered.

As for my argument that the article presents Axelrod's concept of cooperation out of self-interest as something new when it isn't, the point is not that Axelrod didn't point out some new or overlooked aspects, but that the article fails to make clear what they are and instead presents a completely biased and incorrect view of any previous opinions, practically insinuating that advocates of laissez-faire capitalism are generally "Social Darwinists" opposed to mutual aid ignoring some simple facts:


 * The laissez-faire concept is at least more than a hundred (if you count Taoism, about fifteen hundred) years older than the Origin of Species. It's older than Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population as well.
 * Oscar Schmidt, Émile Gautier and Giuseppe Vadalà-Papale, who used the term "Social Darwinism" first, are rather obscure, even to find out if they were for or against it is difficult. The term didn't gain popularity until much later, was usually applied deprecatory, and on people with as incompatible views as Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton. There never was a school of thought that went by this name.
 * There is little evidence that classical liberalism was relevantly influenced by Darwin's work.
 * Many advocates of laissez-faire capitalism object to Malthus' and Darwin's views.
 * Advocates of laissez-faire capitalism don't see it as a Hobbesian struggle, its opponents do.

So basically, the articles takes anti-capitalist phrases and arguments and presents them as facts. That's the very definition of POV, isn't it?—Graf Bobby (talk) 18:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, some interesting points. I'll have to think on these for a while.J. Johnson (talk) 00:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've pondered on this for a while, and while I think some of your points are valid, on others I firmly disagree. Detailed response follows.


 * I am rather astounded by your statement that the article "takes anti-capitalist phrases and arguments and presents them as facts." That is patently not true. Capitalism is mentioned but once, and not to present or assert anything about capitalism, but to reference certain views where the larger issue of individualist versus collectivist ideologies often runs hot.  What astounds me is that a mere reference to an issue about capitalism is deemed "anti-capitalist".


 * As to presenting "a completely biased and incorrect view of previous opinions": that is a ludicrous overstatement. While it seems reasonably likely that advocates of laissez-faire capitalism may generally have views that others might deem social Darwinism, that was not said.  The perception that such was "practically" insinuated (by omission of some simple but irrelevant data of date and ideological pedigree?) suggests a hyper-sensitivity and lack of neutral point of view on your part.


 * That no school of thought self-identifies as "Social Darwinian" is beside the point. I would argue that it is a rough (as noted) but valid label for certain views, follow the link for fuller details. But my view here is also beside the point, as the rough characterization supplied is a near quote from Bowler – who is cited for that point.


 * That this article does not completely elaborate the positions of the so-called (as noted) Social Darwinians, Ayn Rand, or laissez-faire capitalism: so what? This article is not about them. (Want more about them? Hit the wiki-link!) It merely cites them to show that certain views are not without a certain authority.  Lest you think the article is biased in this regard, let me point out that it equally and impartially fails to present a complete and exactly correct view of operations research, game theory, socio-biology, social contract theory, and the literary accomplishments of Herman Melville.


 * Aside from all that: there is a deeper issue here, which I believe I finally understand. (I thank you for the thoughtful, detailed explanation.) Which is not NPOV, but proper encyclopediac tone.  Apparently this means (your interpretation, but I know of no other): just the dry facts, no comment or interpretation except as direct quotes from someone else. It implies that the editor is not trusted to introduce any comment, generalization, or explanation.  (Which is deplorable, because proper commentary is nearly as important as proper selection of materials, and vital to the editorial function, which leads into a whole other topic.  But if this is the community consensus, then so be it.)


 * By this standard this article is flawed from the beginning by statements (such as "The idea that human behavior can be usefully analyzed mathematically gained great credibility ....") that lack specific attribution. Even worse, it seems that the very intent of this article (to go beyond being a mere book report) is thus inappropriate for Wikipedia.  I am thinking I should just take it down. J. Johnson (talk) 21:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, yes, I guess you summed up WP:OR and WP:SOAP pretty well.—Graf Bobby (talk) 04:28, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not that I don't like "the rules", but that slavish application of them undermines a needed editorial function, leading to facile "truths" and even wooden writing. But this is another topic entirely, way beyond NPOV.  J. Johnson (talk) 22:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

On the central issue of possible NPOV violation: quite aside from any other problems or confusions, it seems to me there is no substantial NPOV violation. If that is the case – if there is no other discussion – could the NPOV tag be taken down? J. Johnson (talk) 21:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As there has been no further comment for some while, I am going to presume that the specific NPOV concerns were allayed, and will be taking down the NPOV tag. I am also starting on a series of augmentations and re-structuring that I hope will address some of the other issues raised. J. Johnson (talk) 18:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

"Comparative advantage" recycled?
[I pulled the following out of the NPOV section as it seemed a separate subject. J. Johnson (talk) 22:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)]

My main problem with the article is that it presents Axelrod's concept of cooperation out of self-interest as something new when it isn't. The concept goes back at least to Adam Smith, who falously wrote "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." The concept of comparative advantage goes back to 1815/17.—Graf Bobby (talk) 13:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Er, how is comparative advantage relevant here? —Tamfang (talk) 18:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know when "comparative advantage" came into use as a term, but the concept certainly goes back at least as far Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776); it is the very basis of why he supports trade.


 * Comparative advantage (if I understand it correctly) seems to be effectively the same as mutual advantage, which is the specific basis of cooperation. But the significance of Axelrod's work is not that he presented "cooperation out of self-interest as something new", but that he presented it in a new way (out of game theory and using computer simulation), and showed some new aspects. In particular he showed some of the caveats and characteristics of cooperation that are either new, or seem to have been overlooked or even dismissed in our culture's current Darwinistic - even Malthusian - laissez faire individualism.  His significance is shown by the many studies (of which only a sample are cited in the article) which draw on his work; Smith (and even Kropotkin) have had no where near the influence like Axelrod's.  He is not without critics (see Binmore's review, cited in the article), but I do not see how it is impartial, biased, or non-neutral to state what is well documented: Axelrod's work is significant. J. Johnson (talk) 21:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Comparative advantage – the fact that individuals' abilities do not all vary in the same proportion (that is, if I'm twice as good a typist as you, it doesn't imply that I'm twice as good a cook) – is the basis of division of labor, a specific kind of cooperation, not closely related to cooperation in Axelrod's sense. (There is no specialization between the players in the Prisoners' Dilemma!)  Axelrod uses the words cooperation and defection in a rather special way; their ordinary senses are not opposites.  Comparative advantage is why the butcher is in commerce at all rather than feeding only himself; Axelrod explains (though of course he's not the first to discuss it) why it's in the butcher's interest to refrain from cheating or poisoning the customers. —Tamfang (talk) 16:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Not quite. What comparative advantage really means is that in the context of division of labor it can make sense that someone does something he's actually worse at than someone else. Think of an old hunter who due to his age has become very poor at hunting but is still fairly good at mending bows and making arrows. It makes sense that the younger hunters specialize completely on hunting and let him do all the bow-mending and arrow-making in exchange for meat, even though they'd be faster at it, they'll still hunt more this way. So, basically, even if someone is not very good at anything, there's still a place for him in a division of labor system, contrary to the supposed "Social Darwinist" approach, and the narrative of the article. And if Axelrod uses the words cooperation and defection in a very special way, then this should be explained in the article, the cooperation Wikipedia article to which the word is linked in its first instance does not indicate any such special use.—Graf Bobby (talk) 16:26, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I can see a difference. Comparative advantage seems to be the basis on which two parties might find a mutual advantage; it might be useful to elaborate on this.  Also, I don't recall off-hand that Axelrod explicitly and formally defined cooperation and defection, but this could be a lack that ought to be remedied.  J. Johnson (talk) 21:14, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the context of comparative advantage is that the cooperative aspect is mediated directly: you've got some meat, I've got this nifty arrow, the exchange is made, and the episode is complete. On the other hand, the context of the Prisoner's Dilemma is that there is no assured quid pro quo, there is no guarrantee that if I cooperate (hand over my arrow) that you will also cooperate. So there is an element of trust, and thus the prospect of getting suckered. Or: you may think you got an arrow's worth of meat, but how do you know, on any given trade, that it isn't tainted? You don't. And if you are a just a passing tourist, you might be better off going hungry. (I assume a lack of coercive government, "moral" sensibiiltes, and other externalities.) But in an extended relationship there is more to be gained in long-term cooperation than "defection". Axelrod addresses this explicitly, Smith didn't. J. Johnson (talk) 23:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

My 2 cents
User:J. Johnson asked me to have a look at this article. My main comment is that it reads too much like an essay rather than an encyclopedia article. I may try to weigh in with some edits - not sure - but I will start with one point here: the article should more clearly and explicitly sort out (1) the aspects of this that have to do with biological evolution from (2) those that apply evolution metaphorically to human existence, and from (3) those that are simply about cooperation (or non-cooperation) in human society and have only a tangential connection to the question of how such cooperation (or non-cooperation) evolved. - Jmabel | Talk 21:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Yes, there are a number of respects which probably should be clearer, and even explicit.  I have been concerned that too much explanation and explicitness could come across as talking down to the reader.  Will have to ponder on this a while. J. Johnson (talk) 21:37, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

There's no "talking down" in being clear about who thinks what, whether something is the mainstream view or a somewhat marginal opinion, and in separating the literal subject of the article from its metaphorical use. - Jmabel | Talk 17:32, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * For sure. And that is my goal. But I have to proceed with care, as oftimes I miss. J. Johnson (talk) 23:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

"Nature, red in tooth and claw"
"Nature, red in tooth and claw" is Tennyson, not Darwin. "Survival of the fittest" is Herbert Spencer. I'm not sure about "struggle for existence" but suspect it predates them all. To read the wording currently in this article, one could think they are all Darwin. - Jmabel | Talk


 * These terms are Darwinian in the sense they have become closely associated with his theory, but are adopted. I suppose the sources could be put into notes.  I may do that when I replace those naked hyphens with spaced en-dashes. J. Johnson (talk) 19:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The terms are now wiki-linked. - J. Johnson (talk) 00:53, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Orchids
Shouldn't Darwin's work on what we would today call the coevolution of orchids and insects be mentioned here? It is true that he emphasized the "deception" involved in the process, but the result of the process is mutually beneficial. It doesn't seem that we should specifically expect that cooperation evolves only out of benevolence. - Jmabel | Talk 06:02, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * (Orchids? We don't need no steenkin' orchids! :-) There is a LOT of material that could be mentioned; part of the challenge doing proper editing is cutting out everything not essential.  Darwin's attempt to explain cooperation and even altruism  is significant mainly for being not fully successful.  As so, I reckon it less important than explanations that are successful.  If deeper exploration of some of the issues and implications is useful, I would take examples from Trivers, and even Hamilton.


 * I don't follow you re expecting cooperation to evolve out of benevolence. To the extent that acting out of "benevolence" (goodness towards others) implies altruism, well, that is the core question here: how does cooperation (altruism) evolve? And the expectation (following the principle of natural selection) is that it will not arise out of pure goodness.  Therefore we seek other explanations, which is what the article is all about. - J. Johnson (talk) 20:47, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, exactly. But as far as I know, Darwin's work on orchids is generally considered the most prominent in which he shows one species in ways that benefit another, and the probably the most prominent in which he takes up the issue of other species constituting a crucial part of the environment in ways other than as competitors for a resource. But I'm no expert. Is there a better example? - Jmabel | Talk 00:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The criterion I would apply to whether Darwin's work on orchids should be mentioned here is: is it necessary to (or materially assist) in the development of the this topic? From other sources I gather it is deemed a powerful argument on the power of natural selection, but that is not the issue here. And however much his work may actually support cooperation, the received interpretation of his work is that evolution is primarily competitive.  I think the example of the social insects is "better" on several aspects, in being in the first edition of Origin (and thus better known), specifically addressing altruism, anticipating "group selection" (as I mentioned in the article), and being a fair representation of the view that he did not adequately explain altruism and cooperation.  - J. Johnson (talk) 00:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

capitalism and cooperation
Above it was said that capitalism is only mentioned once; well now it's mentioned twice, albeit close together:


 * ... the cutthroat competitiveness of laissez-faire capitalism ...


 * Such views of evolution, competition, and the survival of the fittest are explicit in the ethos of modern capitalism, ....

Such language ought to be balanced with at least a token mention that commerce is a form of cooperation. The competitive element gets more headlines, and probably appeals to some participants as sublimated war; but the competition is (at least partly; in an ideal world, entirely) in who can better cooperate with the customers, and the prize is opportunities to do so.

That would also help a broader flaw in the article: It needs better concrete examples of cooperation.
 * The scenario of the prisoners is contrived, and if the prisoners cooperate it's a bad thing for everyone else (unless we assume that they're accused of something that only an unjust regime would punish).
 * The next paragraph lists several examples of preserving a commons, and raises the question of why they're not exploited to destruction — which Axelrod's book, which is mostly about pairwise interactions, does not address! (So far as I can remember, having read it circa 1992.) If one player defects (over-uses the commons) and another doesn't, how can a third player punish one and reward the other by choosing whether or not to defect against the commons?

(I don't know (yet) where I'd insert other examples, or what form they'd take; I need to read the article more carefully with that in mind, when I'm more energetic.) —Tamfang (talk) 04:54, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * For sure, there are better scenarios, but this is the one by which the dilemna was first illustrated, and why it is called the Prisoners'  Dilemna. Having to explain that would offset the slight benefit of using an otherwise "better" example.


 * Preserving a commons is but one of many questions that Axelrod (and Hamilton) did not address. But he wasn't trying to address the benefits of cooperation, just a very narrow question (and in a very simplified context) of how cooperation (reciprocal altruism) might develop (evolve). Note that Axelrod did not argue  that cooperation is always beneficial (nor would I), he was mainly elucidating the conditions needed for cooperation.  In that regard he provided tools for anaylzing why a commons can be a tragedy (which I think has been done), and suggests what might work (or not) in mitigation.   But that, I think, would be more appropriate to The Tragedy of the Commons article than to how cooperation evolves.


 * I don't think the article needs better examples (the examples of the cleaner fish and the fig wasp are the classic examples), but perhaps they need better explanation? In the original, pre-Wikipedia version I was putting supplemental material in side boxes, but WP doesn't like that. And putting it in the main flow seemed too unwieldy, so I left much of that out.  Perhaps I presumed too greatly that the reader would understand the reference?


 * As to "balance": what is unbalanced? There seems to be a hyper-sensitivity to any mention of  capitalism, competition, or Ayn Rand that carries any possible hint they might be less benign than Motherhood and Apple Pie.  For all that an enlightened capitalist might, as you suggest, see the relationship with customers as "a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians", in fact many "capitalists" are not that enlightened.  The "market" is a resource (commons?) in which they compete with other suppliers; cooperation is often a matter of price-fixing (which Axelrod does mention).  That capitalism has not been as cuddly as a kitten is, I suspect, because there has been an entirely unbalanced emphasis on competition (derived from Malthus and Darwin) rather than cooperation (Kropotkin).  To simply observe this is somehow unfair? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way, in the sentence mentioning Darwin vs Kropotkin, are you saying that the rhetorical emphasis on "cutthroat competition" has contributed to unnecessary nastiness? I don't disagree! —Tamfang (talk) 05:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not objecting to mentioning the Prisoner's Dilemma; nor do I mean to suggest that the article ought to discuss why cooperation can be a good thing (this isn't Sesame Street). I'm saying it would be good to give at least one example of pairwise interaction in which cooperation is unambiguously a good thing all around, rather than letting the PD be the only example of pairwise cooperation.
 * "At least one example"? Presumably you meant another. And perhaps you are thinking that readers need something more directly relatable to their personal experience?  I'm not certain what you have in mind here.  Keep in mind what I said above, that I wanted to add some supplementary material but felt it impaired the narrative flow, and WP doesn't like sideboxes. Do you have any particular suggestions?


 * I meant "another" in the sense of "more than zero". (Note that I specified pairwise interactions, not commons.) How about live and let live (World War I)?  At least in that story it's hard to argue that anyone is actively harmed if the cooperators get away with it. —Tamfang (talk) 04:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, there's a problem. Do you not see that the PD is "pair-wise"?  It's two prisoners, one pair, interacting.  As I have said before, the PD/IPD is the archetypal example.  Perhaps not the best possible story, but it's lean and clean.  As to demonstrating examples of cooperation, yes, a lot of people like the "live and let live" story, but the elements that give it such human interest make it not so useful from an analytical viewpoint.   If we had side-bars I'd put it in as supplementary material.  But it would clog the main narrative. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * My desire is that the article should contain at least one example (i.e., more than zero examples) where interaction is pairwise and where cooperation is clearly good. I know I have a gift for making myself misunderstood, but this time I thought I was clear. (And how many times have I said that?)  This desire is not satisfied by commons examples nor by pairwise examples where cooperation is arguably bad. Sorry to harp on this but someone keeps on misunderstanding. —Tamfang (talk) 06:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * To further clarify: that "and" means I'm wishing for one example with both properties mentioned, not two or more examples each of which illustrates one or the other, which we already have. —Tamfang (talk) 05:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed that the cleaner fish and the fig wasp "are the classic examples" of something, but they're not examples of the kind of interaction described in The Evolution of Cooperation.
 * I don't understand what kind of interaction you think Axelrod described. I would say that cleaner fish and fig wasps illustrate exactly the kind of interaction he described.  Albeit he only mentions the latter in the book, both are explained (briefly) in his and Hamilton's article.  In both cases there is a question of why the cleaned fish does not snap up a "free" lunch, or the fig wasp lay a few more eggs.  In a single instance (the PD) there is no particular reason not to.  But in the Iterated PD it can be seen that the long-term benefit of getting cleaned in the future can be greater than maximizing today's free lunch.


 * Hm. My books are in boxes at the moment, so I can't look it up. Does Axelrod address the problem of how to distinguish a cheater (a shark that eats the cleaner / a wasp that lays too many eggs) from a cooperator, so as to punish one and reward the other? —Tamfang (talk) 04:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Dealing with cheating goes to the heart of the matter. As I said before,  Axelrod mentions the example in the book, but doesn't explain it.  In the article he explains: if a wasp "cheats", the tree cuts of the fig at an early stage and ALL of that wasp's progeny are lost.  (And perhaps I need to explain that in this article?)  You should read Axelrod's article.  I have yet to find it availalbe for free on the Internet, but if you send me an e-mail I can send you a copy. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Not a commons, then; and if that were made clear, then my desire for a better example would be pretty much satisfied, though an example closer to human experience would be even better. How about the fish? —Tamfang (talk) 05:29, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The present language does more than "simply observe" that capitalism has competitive elements: it practically defines it as sublimated violence. There seems to be a hypersensitive hostility to any mention of the cooperative nature of commerce, heh.  Your last sentence is interesting, in suggesting a self-fulfilling prophecy, viz rhetorical overemphasis on competition makes capitalism less cooperative; did you mean that?
 * Just where do you get this idea that this article "practically defines [capitalism] as sublimated violence"? In the first place (listen up!) there is ABSOLUTELY NO DEFINITION OF CAPITALISM here. (Got that?) I am trying to describe how the issue of cooperation, and its evolution, is relevant to a larger issue of individual interests versus group interests, and particularly with the views commonly described as Social Darwinism. That "survival of the fittest", "struggle for existence", and "red in tooth and claw" seem violent – well, what can I say?  Those are the terms used by Darwin's "bulldogs" (another term sublimely violent).  That these Malthusian and Darwinian concepts, and even the very terms, are explicitly adopted by "capitalists" themselves (e.g., Carnegie, as cited), well, that is how matters stand.  Note that I am not even trying to characterize "capitalism", I was just pointing out where this issue of individual versus group arises.  For sure, "competition" could be recast in a more cooperative manner – which is just what the evolution of cooperation suggests should be done.  But that, in your own words, "the competitive element gets more headlines" is a fact which the article observes.  Quite neutrally, too, because there is nothing said against capitalism, competitiveness (laissez-faire or other), or the views of Malthus, Darwin, or Carnegie.  As near as I can figure you are either in denial that "capitalism" embraces Malthus and competitiveness, or you are faulting me for not making obesiance to Glorious Free Market Capitalism.  (I don't believe I have said anything against capitalism, which makes me think you want something said for it.)  This gets back to the prior assertion that the article was "unbalanced", but when we try to look at it closer it devolves into perception and subjective judgements, and I don't know how to resolve that.


 * In your comments you do a good job of distinguishing between the rhetoric of one Malthusian capitalist (and their ideological detractors) and the nature of commerce. I'd be pleased if the article did so too.
 * (I suspect this tooth-and-claw stuff is/was how the captains of industry consoled themselves for not being captains of war, the only occupation worthy of a truly virile man.)
 * It ought to be easy to find economists and others who argue for laisser-faire policy without praising sublimated violence. For example, the first major success of the free-trade movement (about 13 years before Darwin published) was brought on in part by sympathy with the victims of the Irish potato famine.
 * Imagine that I insert in some article a passing mention of the greed of Jewish bankers, citing the existence of a banker (floruit 1889) who was undisputedly greedy and Jewish, and remarking that the article in question is not about banking or Judaism. Are you satisfied? —Tamfang (talk) 04:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Why do we need to find anyone to "argue for laisser-faire policy"? It is NOT ABOUT laissez-faire policy.  So why do I even mention it?  Because the argument for laissez-faire is based on this broader issue of so-called dog-eat-dog natural selection of the fit.    There is a popular view that life is every man for himself, self-interest is the rule, and altuism and benevolence be damned.  The evolution of cooperation is not against pursuing self-interest (it POSTULATES self-interest). What it does is show how cooperation (reciprocal altruism) IS (or rather, can be) in the individual's self-interest, and is therefore evolutionarily advantageous.  (Which to mind actually removes an objection to laissez-faire competition.)  Why this is not an obscure technical issue of interest to only a small number of specialists (as I said in the article!!) is because it is relevant to these broader issues.  Just because those issues are mentioned is NOT to take an issue on them, and certainly not to define them.


 * Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the article needs to cite l-f economists of any subtype; I said that to contradict the (implied?) claim that all capitalists and l-f advocates agree that what makes l-f good is that it fosters competition (as opposed to cooperation).
 * Why have you changed the subject from "cutthroat competitiveness" to "self-interest"? —Tamfang (talk) 06:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Your position reminds me of story I read in today's newspaper about a book (Vamamos a Cuba) that some folks want removed from libraries because it has pictures of school children in Cuba smiling. And in their minds this is unbalanced without an instant rejoinder how terrible life in Cuba.  (I hope you're not a right-wing nut that doesn't see what's wrong with this.)


 * You seem to think that saying "capitalism" without all sorts of adulation of how warm and fuzzy it is (is it??) is completely pejorative. That's I call hypersensitive.  As to your example, that you have alluded to this view of "greedy Jews", do we now need to make a balancing statement about how warm, friendly, and sharing many Jews are?  I hope not. But it really depends on the context.  I don't think the article is "unbalanced", and I have yet to see you (or anyone else) make any showing that it is.  On one hand, you assert that I have made assertions and definitions, but you can't point to them. (Because they aren't there?) On the other hand you complain that I have, what, left off the "balancing" adulations?  Like the earliar discussion about Rand: having cited her to show that there exists a certain view of certain prominence, must there then be a complete exegesis of her views lest someone get an "unbalanced" view of her?  That's absurd. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you really see no difference between "I object to specific negative things said about capitalism (but can tolerate them, even though I consider them false and harmful, if they're balanced with something more accurate)" and "I object to mentioning capitalism at all without hearts and flowers"?
 * The article does more than allude to a "view" about the nature of capitalism; it says that that view is accurate. —Tamfang (talk) 06:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This is heart of the issue here. I claim the article alludes to certain issues or views (which are associated with "capitalism") without taking any position or making any moral assertion, and you claim that the article says (asserts?) that some such views are are accurate – and also somehow so demeaning or unfair that they require "balance".  Well, I am a bit distracted at present and don't have the time to carefully comb through all of the forgoing discussion, but it seems to me that when I have tried to trace the issue down to specifics we end up with – nothinng.  Maybe we need to start all over again from the top (e.g., point to the specific statements you deem so wildly inaccurate), but don't start off on that quite yet because I don't know if I have the time for it.  And because I think we would just be repeating all of the above. - 24.18.228.202 (talk) 01:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * In what way have I failed to "point to the specific statements [I] deem so wildly inaccurate? —Tamfang (talk) 05:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Partially answering myself: I now notice that the sentence beginning "Such views" is pretty innocuous out of context, since in itself it doesn't say what those views are and I didn't quote the tooth-and-claw stuff. There is at least a difference of emphasis: Carnegie praised l-f principles (as he saw them, and for all I know he had goofy ideas about l-f) for selecting for better capitalists, while free-market economists praise them for encouraging capitalism to deliver better goods and services to consumers; they exalt the individual whom Carnegie would sacrifice for the good of the race. —Tamfang (talk) 05:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd want any mention of "greedy Jewish bankers" removed rather than balanced, but if there were no hope of removing it, balancing somehow would be my second choice. —Tamfang (talk) 05:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * As to "hypersensitive hostility to any mention of the cooperative nature of commerce" – look, this article, and the subject it covers, is NOT ABOUT COMMERCE.  What part of that do you not understand? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Why it makes those assertions about the nature of capitalism, then. :P —Tamfang (talk) 04:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Not so fast there, fella. Pay attention.  You were claiming a "a hypersensitive hostility to any mention of the cooperative nature of commerce" (emphasis added).  What assertions does the article make about commerce?  It does not.  As to capitalism,  there are, what, two mentions of capitalism? (Which you have conveniently quoted at the top of this section.) The second is an assertion ("such views are ... are explicit in the ethos of modern capitalism"), but is in NO WAY a definition, nor even a characterization, and is completely neutral as to whether said views or good or bad or whatever.  The first might be taken as a characterization, but as such it is both true, and such a minor aspect (or not?) of capitalism itself that I am amazed how much you make of it. Don't twist your underwear into knots just becase a kid smiled. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Did you really not recognize my crack about "hypersensitive hostility" to my suggestion as a parody of your own snide imputation of hypersensitivity?
 * The notion of the cutthroat competitiveness of laissez-faire capitalism is a falsehood (even if some capitalists believe[d] fondly in it) that drives a lot of bad policy. That you consider it an unimportant truth explains your attitude but does not excuse the falsehood. —Tamfang (talk) 06:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Damn it, will you pay attention? In the first place, no, I do not "recognize" that your alleged parody as relevant or in anyway useful to this discussion.  You made a statement – which I take as a serious comment, and if you meant it to be an amusing aside then perhaps you should say so, and retract it as a serious criticism.  As it stands, you said that there "seems to be a hypersensitive hostility" re commerce.  Now I will allow that I am starting to feel hostile towards you (because, as I have explained before, it seems to me you are being hypersensitive, and even pushing a POV), but it seems to me that your claim stems entirely from the mention of "cutthroat competitiveness" in the same sentence with "capitalism".  Now whether competition is necessarily "cutthroat", or even whether "capitalism" is necessarily competitive, ARE NOT ASSERTED.  I make no such claims.  And I most CERTAINLY DO NO MAKE ANY DEFINITIONS.  That others do, well, that is part of the "bigger issue" that the article alludes to.  The reason I made that allusion is because in that grander issue there are elements of individualism versus cooperation, and the topic of this article seems relevant to that issue.  That you claim the article "practically defines [capitalism] as sublimated violence" when it makes NO DEFINITIONS, does not mention violence, or for that matter even commerce, well, that is what YOU have read into it.  And on those grounds I suggest that you are the one being hypersensitive. - 24.18.228.202 (talk) 01:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The first use of the term "hyper-sensitivity" wasn't mine, so if you want to call it irrelevant and useless I'm okay with that. (I'm sorry that ending the 'parody' sentence with "heh" wasn't enough signal of humorous intent.)
 * It's at least arguably true that the phrase about "cutthroat competitiveness" does not literally assert anything; it takes a 'fact', which is at best controversial, as given. Is that any more neutral than asserting it?
 * The sentence about "ethos" certainly does make an assertion, no matter how many times you insist otherwise. It asserts that the view expressed by Andrew Carnegie in 1889 is the ethos of "modern capitalism" in general.  Again, that's controversial at best. —Tamfang (talk) 05:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Is capitalism not a form of commerce? In object-oriented programming jargon, does the subclass Capitalism override the methods of class Commerce in such a way as to reverse the cooperative tendency? —Tamfang (talk) 05:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Price-fixing is a commons; how about mentioning that along with the other commons examples?

(This section has gotten so big I am splitting here. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC) )

Benevolence, the key point

 * Part of Axelrod's (and Adam Smith's) point is that cooperation doesn't require the participants to be benevolent, you know. —Tamfang (talk) 21:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, gee, that isn't that the essence of the article? That all those cooperating prisoners, wasps, fish, collusive business tycoons, mycorrhizal fungi, and computer algorithms are NOT doing it out of benevolent brotherly love, nor threats of hell-fire, coercive government, or genetic heritage. They do it because – given certain conditions – there is an actual, individual, self-interested benefit in doing so.  Do I need to explicitly state that benevolence doesn't come into it?  (In caps, and bolded?)  I mean that I credit you (lacking any evidence to the contrary) with at least average reading ability (no??).  So if you missed that cooperation (as used in this context) is exclusively based on rational self-interest, then perhaps my writing has seriously failed to communicate. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:27, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * In the cases of the fish etc, I'm pretty sure that genetic heritage is involved somehow. —Tamfang (talk) 04:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * No, genetic heritage is not involved. (See Trivers.)  Getting back to my question: why is it you did not pick up that benevolence has nothing to do with it, that "cooperation" (as used here) is entirely about self-interest?  Did you not read anything beyond the mere mention of "capitalism"?  Are you simply doing Google searches for "capitalism", and haven't even read the article?  Are you some kind of conservative think-tank cowboy making Wikipedia safe for capitalism? Or is there some flaw in the article? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Really? The fish's behavior is not governed by its genes? Fish that cooperate have no selective advantage?
 * I'll try to ignore the smear about my motives, and any further attempts to persuade me that I'm arguing about something orthogonal to my complaint. I may not always succeed in resisting the bait. —Tamfang (talk) 06:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * As I just said: see Trivers (citation in the article).  Cooperation does not arise out of benevolence.  Rather, the impetus towards benevolence survives because cooperation can be (caveats!) inherently advantageous.  And that was a straightforward question: has my writing failed to communicate that?
 * By the way, I am rather tight for time at present, so I may not be able to respond immediately. - (JJ) 24.18.228.202 (talk) 01:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry I haven't yet made time to read the Trivers paper (though I did download it). When I do, will I understand why you bring up benevolence when I ask about genes?
 * Are you inferring, because I say "cutthroat competitiveness" is not necessary to capitalism, that I think benevolence is? Do you see everything in binary extremes, or are you assuming that I do? —Tamfang (talk) 05:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I make no such inferences, and no such assumptions. This is more of your misconstruing what I am trying to communicate to you. You remarked above that "cooperation doesn't require the participants to be benevolent, you know." Which I find rather condescending, because that is a key finding, and of course I know it. I am amazed that you seem to think it necessary to inform me of the point, as I thought the article made that very point. (Which is why I asked if there is a flaw in the article, a question you have not yet answered.) As regards capitalism, the article cites "cutthroat competition" (such as is often associated with capitalism) as an example to which the theory of cooperation is relevant. But the article makes NO statement, assertion, assumption, nor definition of what is necessary for capitalism. Got that?

As to your belief "that genetic heritage is involved somehow" (above): well, in sociobiology there are some who seek to find a biologic (and implicitly, genetic) basis for altruistic/cooperative behaviour. (I saw one article that gave me an impression they wanted to find this source of non-objective behavior and breed it out of the race.) But such an approach overlooks just why such genes persist in the genome. A question which I see I have already answered twice in just this section, so for one last and final time (minding that "what I say three times is true"): the basis of cooperation is not benevolence, but self-interested mutual benefit. That individuals who cooperated gained a slight reproductive advantage results in a preponderance of whatever genes they carry, which eventually leads to certain genetic results (such as increased ability to recognize individuals), which further encourages cooperation. Much like the chicken–and–egg situtation. But the ultimate answer is that the genes are the result of cooperation (over many generations), not its source.

Please read (and re-read?) the above carefully, but don't read into it more than I said. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:50, 18 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If I ask about what you've inferred, it's because I know that I don't know what you've inferred; call that a "misconstruing" if you like. The search for understanding doesn't get far without conjectures.  If I were literally to refrain from reading more than you say, I'd have to ask you for the sense of every word, whereupon you might complain because my candidate meanings include some that you did not intend.
 * If you don't know (or don't understand) something, by all means ask. For sure, words – or rather, their meanings – can be frail, weak, and ambiguous, and it can take serious effort to successfully communicate something.  But it does not really mean that the sense of every word has to be worked out.  E.g., you asked if I was inferring something, and I replied ("no").  Where I start getting a little testy is (e.g.) where you infer (albeit "rhetorically") that I might (or even impute the same about you) "see everything in binary extremes".  No way!!  It is a principle with me that any argument that is presented as "either ... or ..." is suspect at the least, and even fraudulent.  Indeed, I have generally found that where, say, rejection of an argument 'a' seems problematical because it seems to imply a totally unacceptable argument 'z', the resolution is to look for other alternatives.  (Or ask.)  I suspect that part of the problem here is that many adherents of "capitalism" (a concept I find poorly defined) have come to be very sensitive about possible criticism.  A perceived insufficiency of enthusiasm becomes suspect, along the lines of "either you're with us, or ...".  - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, we're all too enlightened to fall for false dichotomies or to suspect each other of that kind of fallacious thinking. Clearly it would be wrong to suspect either in the person who wrote "There seems to be a hyper-sensitivity to ... any possible hint they might be less benign than Motherhood and Apple Pie" and "You seem to think that saying 'capitalism' without all sorts of adulation of how warm and fuzzy it is is completely pejorative." —Tamfang (talk) 08:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I did read part of the Trivers article. It seems to be mostly about genetic models.  Of course it would be silly to say "they do it because of their genes" without addressing the selective advantage of such genes; when I mentioned that selective advantage, did you think I meant to dismiss it?  At least now I have a glimmer (albeit presumably illusory) of understanding why you answered my question about genes (twice, as you observed) with what looked like a non sequitur about benevolence.
 * (Three times, actually. :-)
 * I object, though, to your last sentence. If the genes that control such animals' behavior are "the result of cooperation, not its source", how did cooperation get started if not with a change in the genes (which was subsequently selected-for)?  —Tamfang (talk) 20:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes! That is the proper question. One answer, originally suggested by Darwin himself, and discussed by Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, is that natural selection can act on groups.  (That is, an individual that sacrifices himself for the benefit of the group might improve the chances of others that carry some of his genes.  But this doesn't work.)  What Trivers proposed is that "reciprocal altruism" is individually beneficial.  (Did I not adequately explain this in the article?)  Individuals that behave in a certain way – and it could be entirely by chance – will gain a benefit.  Their genes might initially be entirely neutral about that behavior, but any changes that might increase that behavior – e.g., an ability to recognize other "players" and remember previous history – would become beneficial, and have a better chance of surviving.  Cooperative behavior might start by chance, but once started it would have a reproductive advantage.  And any genes which facilitated cooperation would likewise be "selected".  Is that clear?


 * Back to the key point: benevolence has nothing to do with it. Cooperation (given the usual caveats) is its own reward. This is, of course, somewhat at odds with the "it's a dog eat dog world" view, but that is why I think this topic is so important. It could resolve the difference between coerced cooperation versus "altruism be damned". - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Leaving aside the dead horse — You raise a point which reminds me of a suggestion about human literacy. Writing certainly wasn't invented or propagated by genes; but, now that it exists and literacy is adaptive, there has been enough time for significant shifts of allele frequency in those genes most relevant to the acquisition of literacy.  If that has indeed happened, I wouldn't say "genetic heritage is not involved" in literacy today.  I can even imagine a distant future in which this tendency has developed into a whole gene-based writing system, though it might take some peculiar circumstances for that to 'defeat' the old-fashioned kind.


 * Do you care to elaborate on your last sentence? Coerced cooperation – where people are not free to withhold altruism from defectors – creates a dog-eat-dog world.  What's to 'resolve'? —Tamfang (talk) 08:44, 25 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, no, I am thinking I no longer care to elaborate on any of this, as it seems we just go around and around and around, and nothing to show for it. E.g., I refer to a general position exemplified by Rousseau (who said that people should be "forced to be free") and Hobbes – which is referenced in the article, and have you even read those portions? (Yes, that is a real question: have you read, perhaps even noticed, the quotes from Rousseau and Hobbes?)  But you read this in a way that is so bizarrely different that it takes my breath away.  It seems that, despite all this verbiage, you still have no understanding of what I have been trying to explain.  By your last statement ("What's to resolve?") it seems that you do not even understand that there is an issue. My efforts here have been of no avail, and I see little point in continuing.


 * I have considered whether this could be due to a failure on on my part, but no longer. If I may speak frankly: your comments show an inadequate comprehension of the subject and its prerequisites.  E.g., your comment that "there has been enough time" for literacy to have a genetic effect shows a total ignorance of a key requirement: that there has to be selective pressure on the trait to be selected.  (Have men or women ever selected mates based on their literacy? Are kids literally hung for flunking spelling tests?)  Which overlooks another key aspect: literacy is not a trait, but a skill, which appears to be dependent on a number of traits, with complex interrelationships.  In respect of cooperation it has been suggested it may have encouraged selection of other complex traits such as language, but this has been a process that took millions of years.  Which makes the six thousand or so years since writing was invented seem like nothing.  Darwin talks of geological time, but it seems you haven't actually read Darwin, which leads you to making comments which are, frankly, embarrassing.


 * I do not have the time to personally tutor you on all the material you need to cover to have minimal comprehension of this topic. I strongly urge you read the first four chapters of Darwin's Origin of Species (preferably the sixth edition), and then Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.  Study Dawkins until it makes sense, then come back and let me suggest some readings in moral philosophy.  After that I think we will be in a better position for fruitful discussion. Until then, sorry, but my limited time is needed on various other tasks, including working on this article. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * (sigh) "What's to resolve" was partly sarcasm: I'm aware that there are people who believe passionately in zero-sum economics, and hence believe that cooperation (unless outside what they think of as the realm of economics) is incompatible with self-interest; or who think that "humans are social animals" implies "humans need to be compelled to behave according to their social nature", absurd as that is. But it's also partly an oblique observation that "coerced cooperation versus 'altruism be damned'" don't look like opposites to me; I'd almost say they're not even alternatives.
 * Gee, that bit of sarcasm sure helped to promote effective communication! ( wink, wink )
 * Look, what you think (about cooperation and self-interest not necessarily being antithetical) and what I think are actually pretty close to the same, and is also the main finding of what this topic has to offer. But quite beside the point.  That this topic is interesting is because of all the people who passionately believe otherwise, or even just implicitly assume otherwise.  Of course, perhaps you understand all this, and you have only been "pulling my chain"?  I would find that to be an indication of lack of intent to have a serious discussion, and if that is the case then my time on this has been wasted. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)


 * When you say developments such as language took millions of years, I think you're on controversial ground at best; but that doesn't matter, because from "we know that certain major changes took millions of years" it doesn't follow that any significant change must take millions of years. The suggestion I'm reporting here is merely that some pre-existing allelic variation makes a difference in ability to acquire a certain skill, leading (on average) to differences in skill, which lead (on average) to differences in wealth, which lead (on average) to differences in ability to attract mates and to feed children, which lead (on average) to differences in numbers of surviving children.  Is such a chain of effects too long?  Of course one doesn't say in polite company that differences in ability can be reflected in wealth, let alone that mental differences can have genetic roots; ergo the hypothesis obviously is not worth considering.  I guess by invoking complexity you mean to say that a given allele may promote literacy in some and work against it in others, depending on other genes?  And of course a gene "for" literacy may be harmful in some other respect, but still the invention of writing changes the environment and thus changes the optimum trade-off (cf Ashkenazi intelligence, concerning a conjectured effect of selection over an even shorter time).
 * You think? So what? Who are you?  Why should anyone give a damn about your opinions?  Do you have some new data, or some novel concept or perspective that no one (out of a long line of strong and informed intellects) has conceived, or thoroughly and properly rejected?  You not only show a profound ignorance of the subject (and of arguments made and resolved long ago), your misinterpretation of what I actually said shows a lack of attention.  Which certainly suggests that (and partly why) you have (to anticipate your comment immediately below) indeed misunderstood what ever books you have read.   I have tried to show you points where you misunderstand, but you treat all of these as debatable.  What you do not understand is just how embarrassingly ignorant you are.  You are not just incompetent to validly suggest or reject anything on this topic, it seems you are not intellectually mature enough to have a serious, bona fide discussion.  Which all you will predictably reject, so there is no point in continuing this. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)


 * When people other than me say "I think", do they mean "I assert infallibly"? When I last said it, I meant "if I remember right from what I've read on such subjects" (that at least a substantial minority of paleontologists believe that the development of language took less than millions of years; in other words, that the earliest modern humans are not millions of years removed from proto-humans in whom we detect none of the behaviors that go along with language, such as decorative art or advanced tool-making or complex social organization).  If I were certain in that belief, I wouldn't signal uncertainty with that prefix!  Believe it or not, I know I'm not an authoritative reference; I might have looked for one, if not for MY VERY NEXT WORDS, "but that doesn't matter, because...".  It's telling that you seize on an explicitly inessential remark to go ballistic, rather than address the substance of why I think you're too quick to reject the literacy idea (which I only mentioned in passing anyway).
 * I've refrained from making an issue of YOUR stubborn misunderstandings, but your bullshit has become too much for my blood pressure, too. I'm unwatching the page now. —Tamfang (talk) 06:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It's regrettable, but not novel, that you attribute differences of opinion (mostly deriving from my rejecting the conventional rationalizations for coercion) solely to ignorance on my part. If I list the books I've read, you'll only say I misunderstood them.  Certainly I failed to absorb Dawkins's alarmed denial (in a foreword to the second edition of TSG, iirc) that his work could have social policy implications. ;)
 * And that now reminds me of G. H. Hardy's taking consolidation in the knowledge that number theory, his specialty, had no military applications. —Tamfang (talk) 02:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The phrase "Study Dawkins until it makes sense" reminds me, amusingly, of the introduction to Dianetics: Hubbard says something like "If while reading you start to think this text is wrong or unclear, it's because you didn't understand some word somewhere; go back until you find the point where you went astray, and try again." I confess I didn't read much beyond that sentence. —Tamfang (talk) 22:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

New section: back to capitalism
(I cut this from above; that was technically improper, but I'm guessing that you won't mind.)
 * (And I revised the section title and made minor adjustments, all to the same end. -JJ)


 * I guess the phrase "the cutthroat competitiveness of laissez-faire capitalism" means different things to you and me; to you it describes a quality "often associated", like the redness of apples; to me it means an inescapable, if not essential, feature. (I assume it's pointless to hope you'll agree that yours isn't the only possible way to read it.)
 * Well, I am a little confused here. Further above I thought you were objecting that I had "practically defined" capitalism as implicitly incorporating the cutthroat aspects of competiveness.  At the risk of further intertwining these different threads, allow me to reassure you that I do recognize that it is an open issue whether (or not) "cutthroat competitiveness" is inherently, essentially, and inescapably an aspect of laissez-faire capitalism.  Indeed, the two terms are so closely asociated that in saying the latter it is almost redundant to explicitly say the former.  The present issue is not whether "cutthroat competitiveness" means different things to you and me (I suspect it doesn't, at least not significantly), but whether this is inescapably, etc., an element of capitalism.  But note: in the article no position is taken on this.  That some people immediately and strongly infer a position, well, that goes to show the significance of the issue.  Which is the point of view of the article:  that there are significant issues in our society where the nature of competition/cooperation are essential elements.  (However, any further discusion on this point should be taken up in a separate section; this section is about benevolence.) - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * So we agree that the issue is not what cutthroat competitiveness means. Nor do I intend to debate whether or not it is an essential feature of l.-f. c. (though I have slipped into doing so).  My complaint is that the use of the construction the X of Y improperly expresses a position that Y invariably has the feature X.  (That's what I meant by "practically defined". I don't always say things in the best possible way on the first try.)  If an article were to contain the phrase the illegality of the US presence in Iraq, would you say that it takes no position but merely recognizes that such a presence could theoretically be illegal sometimes? or perhaps that it refers to incidental crimes by individual soldiers?


 * One may say "But I didn't mean it that way." Tough; Wikipedia ought to avoid an appearance of taking sides.  (Folks rarely complain when I change language to avoid misunderstandings, even when the 'wrong' reading is not very likely.)  One may say "But no one could reasonably read it that way"; one would be mistaken.  One may say "Only a knee-jerk Randroid, looking for opportunities to take offense, could possibly read it that way," in which case I might hypothetically suggest that one were revealing one's own rigid prejudices and straining my duty to assume good faith.  One could even say "Even if such an assertion is implied, only someone who believes it to be false would object"; so what?


 * When you say "that goes to show the significance of the issue" — yeah, that's valid and kinda interesting, but it's no defense.


 * I'm bewildered by the sentence "Indeed, the two terms are so closely asociated that in saying the latter [LFC] it is almost redundant to explicitly say the former [CC]"; it seems to repudiate, quite vigorously, the 'reassurance' of the preceding sentence! Do I misunderstand which "two terms" you meant?  (I have a couple of alternative hypotheses but they don't make much sense.)  Perhaps you mean only that the two terms are so strongly associated in many people's minds (and, perhaps, that being unaware of that association would be quite a gross ignorance, like not knowing who Mohammed was) but then I don't see the point. —Tamfang (talk) 07:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see how this is even an issue: laissez faire capitalism is often cutthroat, and may or may not need be, but that's not the point. It's not a fact, it's a value judgment and an opinion.  If someone else said it, cite it.  If not, it has no business in an encyclopedic article.  If you want to editorialize, start a blog.99.182.81.176 (talk) 06:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I am likewise amazed at how this little detail is such a persistent issue. Look, the purpose of that statement is not to say (editorialize!) that laissez-faire capitalism is cutthroat.  The purpose is to point to a certain opinion, to show that such a point of view exists, not to endorse it.  That such an opinion exists, and the use that is made of it, is a fact.  And as a further matter of fact, not only did someone else say it, that was cited. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

dating Carnegie
I just noticed that this article dates The Gospel of Wealth to 1900, while the article on the essay itself dates it to 1889. —Tamfang (talk) 05:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The reference I cited is a collection; the essay was published earliar. (And I believe more than twice.) - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Theoretical Aspects
Not positive on the scope of this page, but I think it would be cool to add in some of the actual theory on the subject. Just heard Nowak give a talk at Hopkins about evolution of cooperation. In part of it, he gave some examples for requirements in order for cooperation to evolve from natural selection. The simplest example is of individuals playing prisoner's dilemma with each other with cost c for cooperating and benefit b for the other person cooperating (score is b-c if both cooperate, just c if u defect and other cooperate, etc). In this instance, the probability of playing another round with the same individual must be greater than c/b for cooperation to evolve. If you add social intelligence (sharing of info), then probability of knowing another person's reputation must be greater than c/b (thus...indirect reciprocity). If you include an unweighted graph, then the average number of neighbors must be less than b/c. I've only gotten this info from taking notes from his talk. Has anyone been reading his papers and/or his textbook (Evolutionary Dynamics)?

Also, think it might be important to note that cooperation isn't stable. Again, I have no references myself :(, but Nowak mentioned that defectors will gain the advantage if everyone cooperates, but once everyone defects, tit for tat is advantageous and then full cooperation, etc... FrostyM288 (talk) 16:58, 16 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you read Axelrod's book? He does mention the "ALL C" (always cooperate) strategy as being exploitable, which I think the article also mentions. I think what you mean by "actual theory" is really some the of detailed parameters at the heart of the theory.  I mostly skipped over those details because I reckoned the article was getting plenty big enough, and it would be more interesting to most people to see the broader applications rather than the internal details.  Not that there couldn't be a section that goes into more detail.  But be sure to have a good grasp of the material, else there will undoubtedly be all sorts of nit-picking criticism.


 * I'm not certain what you mean by "cooperation isn't stable". For sure, you can't "just cooperate", as in ALL C, but the lesson to be learned is that there are strategies of cooperation (such as TIT FOR TAT) which are evolutionarily stable (read about ESS). - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:37, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Wason sorting task
J Johnson is probably right, this isn't game theory focused enough. I moved it to Evolution of morality for now.-Tesseract2 (talk) 13:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC) BTW, my other suggestion about sorting was just going to be that some higher level headers would look nice to group together some of the shorter, related, paragraph length sections.-Tesseract2 (talk) 13:09, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. (Though, for all that it might matter, I'd say that the problem was not lack of game theory focus so much as just being too fine of a detail for the level reached by the article.)


 * As to grouping the sections into two or three larger sections: I had considered that, but decided that the topic, and its significance, was better developed with a "flow" approach that roughly followed both the historical development of the topic as well its treatment in Axelrod's book. Alternately, yes, the several facets could be treated separately. But (for me) that would be like cooking and eating the carrots, onions, potatoes, and meat separately – same food, but it ain't stew.  What do you think? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:18, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Citation needed??
Charles G. (and anyone else passing by): stand off from adding the citation needed tags! The broken links appear to be the result of someone driving Smackbot through and scraping off the "year=" parameters from the citations that Harv needs. The citation is indeed there, it's only the link the that is broken. And I am about to go through the entire article to fix that kind of nonsense. (Kind of wish we had a "man working" tag so no one starts anything while I'm crawling through the gears.) - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thoroughly reviewed, and I can confidently say (having personally clicked on all of them): there are (currently!) no broken links, internal or external. And no citations needed. (Although there are several places I want to review the cited material, and a couple of formatting problems.) If any problems arise in the future they will be due to subsequent changes. I am also going to review the article, and see what material needs updating or rewriting. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Edits
KMatulich: your article on Microbial cooperation looks good, and certainly should be linked from this article. But the place where you added the link really wasn't appropriate. So I am going to remove that, and find a better place for it. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Theme of this article is in a mess
Is it about the book, or is it about the topic? The title remains italicised (as though about the book title), but the article itself is only partly about the book. This needs to be cleared up. I think the easiest way is to remove the italics, and the initial "The", and to rejig the opening. Tony  (talk)  08:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I rewrote the lead a bit, and I am proposing a move. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:48, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, don't agree that the recent revision (reverted) in anyway clarified anything. The article was orignally just about the book (incompletely at that), and failed to address that there is considerable literture in addition to the book.  I expanded the article to give some sense of the borader field, but retained the focus on the book because that is the most well known portal to the field.  And I am solidly convinced that the bulleted list best – and most clearly – expresses that three-part focus.  I did consider whether separate articles (field and book) would work, but decided there would be too much overlap.


 * Given that the article references the book I think the capitalized version is proper, but I would entertain a solid argument on the point. _ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The evolution of cooperation → Evolution of cooperation –

The article is about a general topic, which is named after a paper. This shouldn't be controversial.

Additionally, general topics don't have "The" at the start of the title, it's just a leftover from when the article was named after the paper. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:48, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Someone should also create a new article called "The evolution of cooperation (book)" that should contain the picture of the book as its main picture. Tommy (talk) 12:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Move I vote move because there should be two separate articles: One article for the concept of "evolution of cooperation" and one article for the book "The evolution of cooperation". As this article is currently written, it seems to be written significantly more about the concept than about the book. Therefore the current article should be moved as suggested. After the move, the main picture in the article should either be removed or preferably replaced, to decrease the risk of confusion that the article is about the book.
 * I think I support both suggestions; they're not incompatible, are they? Enric, did you mean to capitalise the "E" at the start? Thanks for dealing with this article. Tony   (talk)  12:58, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Against unspecified and ill-considered moved. You are not clear as what you want to move/rename this article to, or even if you want multiple articles.  Yet it seems the article has already been moved!  What gives?  I think you're moving too fast.  Step back and talk about it about it a bit.  _ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. "The" is redundant, and anomalous in comparable WP titles. (I uppercased the "E" in the RM specification. Get it right, guys.) N oetica Tea? 22:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I Support Moving this whole article to Evolution of cooperation (which currently redirects to this article) because that page's title is more general and appropriate (no "the", but it is also not italicized). Maybe Axelrod's ideas could be explored further in some kind of "The Evolution of Cooperation (book)" page, to make it distinguishable from the general Evolution of Cooperation page.- Tesseract2 (talk) 15:19, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

All of you proponents of moving are missing something: what exactly do you propose moving to? Several critcisms have been made, but which are you voting for? Or are you ratifying the move that has already been made? _ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Bulleted list item
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Sorry, but I am going to modify this section, because I think 1) you're moving too quickly, and 2) there is yet not definite statement as to the what move is supposed to be to (or if it is a ratification of the move previously made). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:42, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * JJ, I can't make out your last statement. Should this article be split into one for the topic and one for the book? If not, it's a bit uncomfortable to thematise the book and then widen beyond it (considerably?) to the topic. Can you give us some direction here? Tony   (talk)  03:38, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You're asking what should be done? So am I. My "direction" is we should sort out what to do before actually doing it.  Or settle on a clear statement of what is proposed to do before voting on it.  What I see here is (in chronological order): 1) someone proposing "a move" (change of title), 2) a move, 3) then discussion of possible changes and statements of support (but for what? "all of the above"?), 4) another move (change of title).  Mixed in with this is discussion of merging and/or splitting the article.  And then suddenly the discussion is closed.  How about we put any further changes on hold until there has been sufficient discussion to settle on a specific proposal to vote on?  ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Requested move (back)
Evolution of cooperation → The Evolution of Cooperation – This article covers the book (and preceeding paper) titled The Evolution of Cooperation, and the theory and experimental results expounded therein. It doesn't really cover the entire field. Therefore, it's more appropriate to name the article after the book. I'm aware that it was previously moved from the target title, but I consider that a mistake. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 17:06, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I am ambivalent about this. The article was originally just about the book (and sketchily at that). I expanded it somewhat to give more coverage of the topic. But (as I said above on 21 October 2011) the book is probably still the best introduction to the topic. Certainly the situation would be different if there was a good article on the topic as a whole; lacking that this article needs to provide some of the context. My main concern is that focusing on the book might be taken as grounds for dropping mention of the paper (which is also important) or the the context and effect of the book. I, too, consider the previous move to have been a mistake (and ill-done), but not one over which I wanted to get into a fight. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:54, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I think an article about the book could cover the paper as well, and comment on the differences between the two. As long as there's no good article about the field, it's ok to discuss the necessary concepts in this page. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 09:54, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support. The book founded the discipline, and is still the standard text. There is no call to split the article, and IMO it's best to focus on the book, so we should capitalise, and include the article. It may be that in the fullness of time the article is moved again or (more likely) split, but for now the previous move was at the very least premature, the above discussion notwithstanding, and should be reversed as proposed. Andrewa (talk) 09:09, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support. At this time the article is mostly about the book. Lentower (talk) 14:15, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support, considering the emphasis on the book rather than the general concept. bobrayner (talk) 20:49, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Plans for revision - 2015
Hi! I'm planning to revise this article in the next month. This revision will have several parts.


 * 1. Given that users may search for "The Evolution of Cooperation" to find either a general explanation of an idea in science which has many past and recent developments or to find specific information on a classic text on the topic I think the best course of action is to disambiguate this page. One article will be focused specifically on the book and its paired journal article, the other article will be merged with Co-operation (evolution).


 * 2. There has been a lot of debate about the tone of this article. Once we've separated the book from the general idea for clarity, I'd like to make the tone more encyclopedic, like a "book report", using other book focused articles as a guideline.


 * 3. I'll probably also alter the structure of the book article to more closely match the standard set by similar articles on wikipedia. This should give more context and will improve clarity for readers already familiar with wikipedia articles.


 * 4. Some information may be cut with editing. I feel it is best to remain simple and clear, and even if some details are interesting they may not be appropriate for a wikipedia article. "See also" links, notes, and references should help readers who are interested in exploring the topic in more depth.

Jordan Prokosch (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2015 (UTC) Jordan Prokosch - 3/8/2015


 * Jordan: you are a brand-new editor, with exactly two edits so far, which strongly suggests that much of what you do here in the next several months will be very much a "learning experience" in regards of everything to do with Wikipedia. To minimize the pain all around I strongly suggest that you start out more modestly, at a scale where the changes (and lessons to be learned!) are more "bite sized". If you would like mentoring I would be pleased to try to help.


 * In regard of this article, and your proposed merge with Co-operation (evolution), your plans are ambitious even for an experienced editor. While I think there are matters here that warrant discussion, I would like to have some idea of your general background on this topic, so that we can engage at a suitable level.  For myself, I am familiar with pretty nearly all of the references in the article, though I have not been keeping up with current developments. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:33, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:33, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm a graduate student in Anthropology at Washington State University. As part of a class project we're editing or adding content to Wikipedia related to a topic of interest in Evolutionary Anthropology. I'm afraid I'm actually doing a minimally ambitious project to meet the requirements. I've read the book and the article thoroughly, besides that when I look at your references I am very familiar with Axelrod, Darwin, Dawkins, Hamilton, Maynard Smith, Rapoport, Ridley, Trivers and Williams.


 * For newer work I’ve read:


 * Henrich et al 2005. ’Economic Man’ in Cross-cultural Perspective: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-scale Societies.
 * Fehr et al. 2002. Strong reciprocity, human cooperation, and the enforcement of social norms.
 * Gurven 2005. To give and to give not: The behavioral ecology of human food transfers.


 * Smith and Bird 2000. Turtle hunting and tombstone opening public generosity as costly signaling.


 * I hope I’ve established that I've read up on the topic, but I believe that some of the references in the article aren’t necessary and make the article less clear for someone unfamiliar at all with the field. I've read Ayn Rand, but I don't think this is the proper place for a debate on the merits of her philosophy. I’ll be drawing primarily from the book content for this article. I think these references are better suited to a more general discussion of the idea in the other article.


 * If you're still worried about my expertise, anything I write will also be looked over by Professor Ed Hagen.


 * As for help with editing, that's an excellent idea. I am unfamiliar with editing wikipedia, so I will be using templates and examples whenever possible, but I'll probably screw up somewhere. However, I'm aware that you're the primary author on this article and for the most part you have been defending it vigorously, and not changing it significantly, even though it's been tagged for years. I think it will benefit from fresh eyes.


 * Besides being worried about the scope of the changes proposed and questioning my experience, do you have any concrete concerns with the proposal? Do you think that any element is unwarranted?


 * I will make sure to write everything up in a sandbox first so we can make sure what I do is a positive contribution to wikipedia. [User:Jordan Prokosch|Jordan Prokosch]] (talk • --Jordan Prokosch (talk) 21:50, 16 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Look: I am not "questioning your experience": I asked ("questioned"??) whether you have any experience. And the answer seems to be: none to speak of. Which should not taken, in any way, as suggesting that you cannot or should not edit. But you do need to learn how to stand before you walk, walk before you run, etc. Specifically, there is a lot of Wikipedia policy and process you need to pickup on real fast, to avoid getting run over by a bunch of other editors. One point in particular: should sign your comments by adding the famous "four tildes" ( "~" ). I'm out of time today; more tomorrow. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the advice on signing posts. I signed my first post, but I forgot to do so on my second so I went back later and corrected it. It appears you have no substantial concerns with the proposal itself? If that's the case I will begin making changes to the article soon. I'll start by changing this article to be centered exclusively on the book. I'll save a copy of the source material in this article so it can be used later in a merger with Co-Operation (Evolution). You might want to do the same if wikipedia doesn't save previous drafts. That's another area where I'm woefully ignorant of wikipedia policies. Here is a link to my sandbox, where I have a draft of the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jordan_Prokosch/sandbox I will be making small error corrections today and then put it up tomorrow if there are no substantial issues. If you're greatly concerned with the loss of content, perhaps you can help add some to the primary subject article? Jordan Prokosch (talk) 22:43, 19 March 2015 (UTC)


 * You don't have to explicitly save text. If you click on any page's "History" tab you will see all of the edits that have been done to that page, and each edit has a link to the version of that page at that time. I added bunch of useful links to your user page; do take some time to explore them. BTW, it appears you have been adding your comments doing a whole page edit (using the Edit tap at the top). While it doesn't make too much difference here, it is generally best to edit the section or sub-section.


 * I have been rather fully engaged of late, so haven't been able to look at your proposed changes. Would appreciate it if you could hold off a bit so I can take a look, as that might save a lot of work/time later on. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:42, 20 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Jordan: I have just looked at what you have written. Sorry, but there are major problems, and your draft absolutely is not going to fly. And I say that without even looking at the substantive changes. So while you may have good contributions to make, and may yet get there, we have a lot of work to do on form. You mentioned that your effort here is part of a class project. We should discuss the intended purpose and scope of your work, and, very imporantly, your prospective timeline for doing this. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)


 * P.S. BTW, while there are some points in favor of doing drafts in the "Draft" namespace, I think we will be fine working in your sandbox. We can discuss your draft on the Talk page there. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:39, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 12 one external links on The Evolution of Cooperation. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110518024042/http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/SciAm02.pdf to http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/SciAm02.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110719060124/http://www.lrz.de/~u516262/webserver/webdata/guererketal2006_sanctioningmechanisms_science.pdf to http://www.lrz.de/~u516262/webserver/webdata/guererketal2006_sanctioningmechanisms_science.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20091229084043/http://lis.epfl.ch:80/~markus/References/Hamilton64a.pdf to http://lis.epfl.ch/~markus/References/Hamilton64a.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110719175825/http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/dees/V1003/lectures/population/Tragedy%20of%20the%20Commons.pdf to http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/dees/V1003/lectures/population/Tragedy%20of%20the%20Commons.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110518015457/http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/science07.pdf to http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/science07.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110629014507/http://www.sfu.ca/~wchane/sa304articles/Henrich.pdf to http://www.sfu.ca/~wchane/sa304articles/Henrich.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110518021052/http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/Nowak_Science06.pdf to http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/Nowak_Science06.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110719204742/http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/Science00.pdf to http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/Science00.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110616192929/http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/Nature92b.pdf to http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/Nature92b.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080704060932/http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/Nature93.pdf to http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/Nature93.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110721215055/http://www.ecfs.org/projects/pchurch/AT%20BIOLOGY/PAPERS/ReplacingDarwinsSexualSelection.pdf to http://www.ecfs.org/projects/pchurch/AT%20BIOLOGY/PAPERS/ReplacingDarwinsSexualSelection.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110518024042/http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/SciAm02.pdf to http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/SciAm02.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 23:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Article scope remains a complete mess
I just reworked the lead so that it didn't read like a disambiguation page.

From MOS:MINORWORK

Italics are generally used only for titles of longer works. Titles of shorter works should be enclosed in double quotation marks ("text like this"). It particularly applies to works that exist as a smaller part of a larger work. Examples of titles which are quoted but not italicized:


 * Articles, essays, papers, or conference presentation notes (stand-alone or in a collected larger work).

The current page title is The Evolution of Cooperation (rendered in italic) which clearly references the book first of all (by MOS:MINORWORK the paper would not be italicized), so I moved the book to the head of the class.

I strongly feel that the book/paper are notable enough to justify their own article, and that the field the book/paper instigated has since grown into a larger, independently notable field of study. I also think it would greatly benefit clarity to have one article devoted to how things stood at the time of the paper/book, which can basically serve as a "main article" on the origins of the modern disciplinary tussle.

With this two/three headed beast of an article, the "help wanted" flags at the top could endure for another decade yet, with no substantive improvement. Who wants to dive into cleaning this up, as presently constituted? Not I, for one. &mdash; MaxEnt 23:15, 6 July 2019 (UTC)


 * If people feel that the paper should come before the book in the lead, by all means rename this article to "The Evolution of Cooperation" and reorder the first two definitions to align with the new name. But do note that the lead is presently supported by a book infobox. &mdash; MaxEnt 23:19, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Move or Split Recommendation
This has been discussed in the past, but needs to be brought up again. This article is kind of a Frankensteing of three things. My recommendation is that we move it to a general "evolution of cooperation" page or we split out at least the book and the general theory. FiddleheadLady (talk) 15:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Is most of this article even about the book...
...or just a general discussion of some related concepts?  Volunteer Marek  01:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * At a glance it seems to very much not be about the book. Agree that some kind of move/split is in order, but I'm not familiar enough with the subject matter to say where to. Blue Edits (talk) 04:49, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

revised edition

 * Since 2006, reprints of the book have included a foreword by Richard Dawkins and have been marketed as a revised edition.

The phrase "marketed as" could suggest that the label is misleading, that the foreword is the only new bit. So, was the body indeed updated? If so, how about: A revised edition, with a foreword by Richard Dawkins, appeared in 2006 ? —Tamfang (talk) 03:02, 6 July 2023 (UTC)