Altruism: It's in the math

josephpalazzo · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:37 pm Post subject: Altruism: It's in the math

This is a question that has puzzled academics for centuries, especially since in evolution the basis for the “survival of the fittest” is, after all, selfishness. But in an article just published in the journal Nature, three Portuguese theoretical physicists develop a mathematical model capable of providing a way out from this conundrum through the introduction of social diversity - a ubiquitous characteristic of modern social networks - and suggesting that that the act of cooperation is dependent on one’s social context/ranking.

And in fact, when social diversity was taken into account the numbers of those cooperating increased in direct relation to the system diversity. Furthermore, cooperation, according to this model, spreads even faster when the act of cooperation is considered more important than the amount given, with these societies presenting also a much fairer distribution of wealth. This new mathematic model for society’s evolution is particularly interesting because not only it reveals a logic behind the large numbers of cooperators that we know exist in all human societies, but also it gives us a glimpse of the principles that can help “pushing” them into a better, fairer, path.

Read the whole article...

SalsaShark · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:59 pm Post subject:

I didn't read the article and it's because I'm being pretty lazy right now (don't worry, I will later), but I find that strict mathematical models for sociological behaviors are fundamentally flawed in that sociological behavior depends on non-quantifiable properties (values, emotions, etc...). Thus I take them with a grain of salt. Nevertheless they are interesting.

josephpalazzo · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:27 am Post subject:

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