Steve Frank & Lee Alan Dugatkin: Cooperation

• Books and Evolutionary Psychology by James Brody, 8/4/97
  
  

I ordered "Foundations of Social Evolution" (Princeton, 268 pp.) by Steven Frank and "Cooperation Among Animals" (Oxford, 221pp.) by Lee Alan Dugatkin, both after a review in "Nature."

Frank ... I can't react to his arguments; my math abilities are not up to it. The material, however, appears sufficiently valuable that I will learn the math. Also, it annoys me to find essays about things I love and by people I respect but in notation that I don't understand. John (Maynard) Smith briefly mentions the need for calculus at the opening to his book as well. He's correct. The calculus summarizes dynamic relationships notes boundaries for them; nouns and verbs are often too static and leave an impression of permanence or an absence of qualifying conditions.

Economics theory may be highly productive for exactly the reason it has been criticized briefly by Geoff Miller for producing "antique behaviorism." Probability of reinforcement models apply to molecules, they also apply to pigeon pecks in an operant chamber or to the success of an allele. The behaviorism is quite "antique" and likely goes back 15 billion years. It's effective despite dents and shabbiness and despite an absence of supernormal displays.

Dugatkin ...describes the math involved with population genetics and altruism as "horrendous" and tries to work around it. His material is clearly stated, organized by taxa after a detour through Prisoners Dilemma and explanations of Byproduct Mutualism, speculated to be of more importance than group selection, kin selection, or reciprocity.

Exchanges of services in fish include egg trading, mutual cleaning, cooperative foraging, alarm pheromones, mobbing, and predator inspection.

Birds, nonprimate mammals, primates, and insects have their chapters.

Dugatkin, per direction of his editor, avoided inclusion of material that has had wider publicity in the past.

I'll have more fun with Dugatkin but suspect Frank will have the greater long term impact on my thinking. Order Dugatkin before 2/1/99 and Oxford will give you 20% off list, possibly less than the $30 plus shipping that Amazon.com will charge.

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