Thriving on Selfishness

Evolutionary biologist Omar Tonsi Eldakar came up with a clever new idea: cheaters help to sustain altruism by punishing other cheaters, a strategy called selfish punishment. Eldakar, who described his model with his Ph.D. thesis adviser David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton University in May 2008, expla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific American 2009-04, Vol.300 (4), p.26-27
Main Author: KRAKOVSKY, MARINA
Format: Magazinearticle
Language:English
Subjects:
Altruism
Behavior
Behavioral biology
Biological altruism
Biologists
Eldakar, Omar Tonsi
Fraud
Humans
Insect eggs
NEWS SCAN
Police services
Punishment
Selfishness
Social Behavior
Symptoms
Theory
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Summary:Evolutionary biologist Omar Tonsi Eldakar came up with a clever new idea: cheaters help to sustain altruism by punishing other cheaters, a strategy called selfish punishment. Eldakar, who described his model with his Ph.D. thesis adviser David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton University in May 2008, explains that all the theories addressed how altruists keep the selfish guys out. Because selfishness undermines altruism, altruists certainly have an incentive to punish cheaters--a widespread behavior pattern known as altruistic punishment. But cheaters, Eldakar realized, also have reason to punish cheaters, only for motives of their own: a group with too many cheaters does not have enough altruists to exploit.
ISSN:0036-8733
1946-7087
DOI:10.1038/scientificamerican0409-26