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In Brief
- People tend to think of evolution as a strictly dog-eat-dog struggle for survival. In fact, cooperation has been a driving force in evolution.
- There are five mechanisms by which cooperation may arise in organisms ranging from bacteria to human beings.
- Humans are especially helpful because of the mechanism of indirect reciprocity, which is based on reputation and leads us to help those who help others.
More In This Article
Last april, as reactors at japan's fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant were melting down following a lethal earthquake and tsunami, a maintenance worker in his 20s was among those who volunteered to reenter the plant to try to help bring things back under control. He knew the air was poisoned and expected the choice would keep him from ever marrying or having children for fear of burdening them with health consequences. Yet he still walked back through Fukushima's gates into the plant's radiation-infused air and got to work—for no more compensation than his usual modest wages. “There are only some of us who can do this job,” the worker, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Independent last July. “I'm single and young, and I feel it's my duty to help settle this problem.”
Although they may not always play out on such an epic scale, examples of selfless behavior abound in nature. Cells within an organism coordinate to keep their division in check and avoid causing cancer, worker ants in many species sacrifice their own fecundity to serve their queen and colony, female lions within a pride will suckle one another's young. And humans help other humans to do everything from obtaining food to finding mates to defending territory. Even if the helpers may not necessarily be putting their lives on the line, they are risking lowering their own reproductive success for the benefit of another individual.
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29 Comments
Add CommentThe evolution of cooperative behavior is founded in selfish pursuit; survival. Man is not inherently good by nature, just look at children's selfishness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCooperation came first. Religion -- as a science to explain what works best for the progress of human society -- came second.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt has always been intriguing to me why religious people believe faith in God is a necessity for moral behavior. Part of it must be the belief in the stories like Sodom and Gomorrah which portrays humans as savage heathens in the absence of God.
Ezekiel 16:49-50 -- "Now this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."
Was it God or natural selection that "did away with them?"
Interesting that you so immediately inject religion in to the subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgmrichmond99,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally??? Are you saying that you have not contemplated the origin of the Golden Rule or any other altruistic behavior without thinking about religion. What other doctrine promotes self-sacrifice more than religion? Or did you not consider the the behavior of the young Japanese worker as self-sacrificing? Most science would consider his behavior illogical.
I also find your ad hominem reply interesting.
ad hominem? I think your skin is too thin!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgmrichmond99,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, an ad hominem. And again you reply with another ad hominem. Please learn to comment on the subject at hand (the article or another comment) rather than comment about the personal attributes of the author or another commenter.
Ditto Cramer!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgmrichmond99, you just really don't get it, do you? You really do not understand the difference between committing about someone's words or behavior vs judging someone's personal attributes such as their character.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have never attacked you personally by calling you a name (e.g. thinned skinned) nor have I made any assumptions about your personal motives in your comments (e.g. emotional hangups regarding religion).
You never gave any reason of why you believed religion was off-topic, even when I asked you specific questions. You were unable to focus on the discussion, but only able to focus on what type of person you believe I am.
I couldn't care less about what you call me or what you think of me, but I do care about the behavior of people who comment here. I would rather have interesting debates rather than wading through useless comments of name calling and guesses of the motives of others.
Maybe it's best to ignore bad behavior than pursuade the person not to behave bad.
Do you care to comment of why you might believe that religion was off-topic for this article? If so, I will reply; otherwise I wish you luck in life.
I think, and this is my personal opinion, that you're looking for an argument. Yes, I think you're thin skinned. No, I didn't say you have emotion hangups regarding religion, those are your words and interpretation. You injected religion in to this story, not me. There is no reason other than your pre-position and pre-supposition to do so. Furthermore, IF you could care less then why reply at all?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is interesting to me how some people need to conflate cooperation with self-sacrifice. Almost to the point of trying to prove that sacrificing yourself is beneficial to yourself. (oh, but then of course it would not be sacrifice. oops.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd then I wonder, "why would it be SO IMPORTANT to some people to prove the benefits of SACRIFICE?" Why is it so important to explain why people should chuck their lives and their desires away? And then why the surprise when SO MANY people DO?
gmrich, you really need to read more carefully. I explicity stated that I responded to address your bad behavior: personally attacking other commenters rather than attacking what has been written by other commenters. Your personal attacks did not hurt me in the least amount, but they do lower the value of this forum. ATTACK THE IDEAS, NOT THE PERSON! This is not about me; it is about your behavior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I know you do not need a lesson on innuendos (just like I did not say that you said that I have 'emotional hangups about religion' -- I was giving an example -- why would you assume it was about you? Do you have a 'pre-supposition' that everything is about you? Yes, two can play that game.).
Yes, I believe religion relates to this article about EVOLUTION and COOPERATION (i.e. help thy neighbor), but you have yet to state why religion does not relate to this article. Instead you make an assumption that I have a personal propensity to inject the topic of religion into secular topics (which is a judgement of character, NOT an argument).
Google site:scientificamerican.com cramer religion. Then tell me where else I injected religion into a story.
I have read Super co-operators! Brilliant read Dr. Nowak!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry to see that Cramer gmrichmond99 are having a tough time finding common ground. I'll bet each of you are pretty smart people. 'interesting that smart people can combine to make for such uncooperative interaction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<i>"why would it be SO IMPORTANT to some people to prove the benefits of SACRIFICE?"</i>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUtterly selfish peace of mind, apparently: http://www.iep.utm.edu/psychego/
I know my first year philosophy course would come in handy some day!
Cheers
The Universal Bond of Awareness
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCooperation between species, and empathy as a common trait, becomes apparent if we focus on the universal similarities of awareness in all life instead of the great diversity in physical forms. Natural Selection has responded to the diverse and ever changing environment in which life must struggle to survive by letting genetic adaptations run free to produce microbes, magpies, minnows, mollusks and mice, but it has been restrained in the creation of adaptive forms of awareness by the limited ways a living form can sense and react to its surroundings.
Life cannot exist, even in its simplest form without, at least, a passive way to sense and respond to internal conditions and environmental situation. Early awareness may be simple chemical responses like the gene being prompted to separate and reproduce but awareness has evolved, in concert with biological complexity, to become the eye, the ear, chemically sensitive buds and pressure and temperature sensitive cells. These essential restricted sensory paths can be traced back to single celled life possessing primitive eyes, a sensitivity to temperature, vibration etc. From plants to mammals the natural selection of limited means for awareness and the natural selection of nerve clusters to utilize environmental sensors more effectively follow a common and narrow trace.
We are related to all other living things more closely by our common ability to sense and respond than we are by the threads of genetic histories of form. Genetics has played a major role in the selection of our common abilities to sense, respond, learn and remember but the limited ways in which we can gather and utilize information from our surroundings has made us more alike in this sense, than in any other.
Our awareness of awareness in others, even other species, is at the base of our development of cooperative and empathetic responses. Natural selection is not a formula or directive it is simply the way in which life persists and adapts. The natural world around us has made us very different and very similar. To appreciate our similarities we need to begin to define awareness in more basic terms. The book, “Darwin’s Paw” introduces these ideas in a fictional lecture series. The book “The Other Half of Evolution” explores these ideas in a formal non fictional format. If we find life elsewhere in the Universe, classifying it in terms of its level of awareness may make more sense than looking for connections to earthly forms and may allow us to dampen the inevitable religious revolutions. Seeing ourselves, (Humanity), as the result of four billion years of naturally selected advances in awareness, with the ability to usurp natural selection itself, mandates that we think beyond moral precepts from the past. We need not give up our moral teachings but as the single life form determining the future of all life, we need to understand our responsibility to: Explore and learn; Be of good council; and to Be good stewards.
The future of all life on our planet depends upon Us.
The Universal Bond of Awareness
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCooperation between species, and empathy as a common trait, becomes apparent if we focus on the universal similarities of awareness in all life instead of the great diversity in physical forms. Natural Selection has responded to the diverse and ever changing environment in which life must struggle to survive by letting genetic adaptations run free to produce microbes, magpies, minnows, mollusks and mice, but it has been restrained in the creation of adaptive forms of awareness by the limited ways a living form can sense and react to its surroundings.
Life cannot exist, even in its simplest form without, at least, a passive way to sense and respond to internal conditions and environmental situation. Early awareness may be simple chemical responses, like the gene being prompted to separate and reproduce, but awareness has evolved in concert with biological complexity to become the eye, the ear, chemically sensitive buds, and pressure and temperature sensitive cells. These essential restricted sensory paths can be traced back to single celled life possessing primitive eyes, a sensitivity to temperature, vibration etc. From plants to mammals the natural selection of limited means for awareness and the natural selection of nerve clusters to utilize environmental sensors more effectively, follow a common and narrow trace.
We are related to all other living things more closely by our common ability to sense and respond than we are by the threads of genetic histories of form. Genetics has played a major role in the selection of our common abilities to sense, respond, learn and remember but the limited ways in which we can gather and utilize information from our surroundings has made all life forms more alike in this sense, than in any other.
Our awareness of awareness in others, even other species, is at the base of our development of cooperative and empathetic responses. Natural selection is not a formula or directive it is simply the way in which life persists and adapts. The natural world around us has made us very different and very similar. To appreciate our similarities we need to begin to define awareness in more basic terms. The book, “Darwin’s Paw” introduces these ideas in a fictional lecture series. The book “The Other Half of Evolution” explores these ideas in a formal non fictional format. If we find life elsewhere in the Universe, classifying it in terms of its level of awareness may make more sense than looking for connections to earthly forms, and may allow us to dampen the inevitable religious revolutions the discovery of extraterrestrial life will evoke. Seeing ourselves, (Humanity), as the result of four billion years of naturally selected advances in awareness, with the ability to usurp natural selection itself, mandates that we think beyond moral precepts from the past. We need not give up our moral teachings but as the single life form determining the future of all life, we need to understand our responsibilities to: Explore and learn; Be of good council; and to be good stewards. The future of all life on our planet depends upon our understanding the lessons of cooperation taught by evolution.
What is supremely of interest here is how the paradigm that exists, in regards to general knowledge of evolution and how it is taught, is contradictory to the notion that cooperation is just as integral an aspect to evolution as mutation and selection.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd because this flawed paradigm pervades, we mistakenly have concocted all sorts of cultural ideas and practices, throughout the globe, where we think that cooperation harms our level of fitness.
But without cooperation the development of complex organisms, of language, and of innumerable other achievements is impossible.
Just think how our economic models are built around competition and not cooperation, and think even further that we do not-so-much think of this as a problem when all of the markets are today interconnected and interdependent.
It is time that cooperation was given its proper space in the classroom and time that society learned that without it, continued advancement, and any hope of homeostasis (which is of great need in an interconnected world), is impossible.
Davidprosser says, "in regards to general knowledge of evolution and how it is taught, is contradictory to the notion that cooperation is just as integral an aspect to evolution ..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd,
"Just think how our economic models are built around competition and not cooperation..."
It's interesting to me that people can rejoice about the cooperation they discover in EVOLUTION and in the same statement turn around and deny that it exists in MARKETS. How would markets EVER FORM if FREE TRADE were devoid of COOPERATION???? It's even called "TRADE". How, in our modern minds, did this lose the connotation of cooperation??? Look for that answer and you will find why evolution has come to be viewed as purely competitive.
And it is scientists in today's top scientific journals ignoring these facts.
David Prosser, I have a slightly different way of saying the same thing as well. We cooperate all the time. The common goal is to win. Trouble is this one sided equation demands that one also loses. Our orientation to cooperate is askew. We seem to like cooperating to win something for ourselves. True cooperation may be a level that we haven't yet achieved but that is hard wired so to speak, within us naturally as a way to thrive as a species together in our earthly enviornment. Nature has arranged that we can all thrive within our balanced living systems here on earth. Humans seem to be prone to see themselves as inside separate worlds rather than to see themselves as part of the entire living system. This egoistic orientation is too limited although it causes us to survive as individuals, our feeling of exclusivity could hasten the destruction of our species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscrdcalusa seems to have hit it. Cooperation in the market is a win-win of the form of us vs. them. The members of a corporation are certainly arranged to cooperate with each other -- but in a matter that is exploitative of anything beyond that corporation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll-encompassing win-win, where all others reach equal concern with the self, seems the ultimate direction that evolution will go at each level. From independent selfishness, to cooperation, to unification to a higher self -- towards an all encompassing unity.
But in the everyday here and now, perhaps we should work towards a society whose relationships a sense of mutual responsibility -- rather than merely settling for the "honor among thieves" type of "cooperation."
TreeLuver, crd, and engineer have it exactly correct about coorperation in the marketplace (free trade). However, you did not use the most important word (concept):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTRUST.
Free markets always require trust. One party of the transaction is always completing their side of the contract first. In a restaurant the seller trusts that the buyer will not dine and dash. In retail, the buyer trusts that the item they purchased is as described when they get it home and start using it. (we could go on and on).
Trust is a form of cooperation.
When trust breaks down, commerce goes with it.
That's the main reason we have regulations, so trust is not destroyed -- think banking and the fact the government guarantees deposits. [There has never been a banking system to survive in the long-run without that guarantee. Bank runs will alway occur. And that is exactly what happen to Lehman in 2008 since Lehman did not have insured deposits but used the repo market for its liabilities. And now we no longer have an exclusive investment banking market (with large banks). The two survivors (Goldman, Morgan Stanley) -- saved by the gov -- are now legally commercial banks -- that can borrow from the Fed and take insured deposits.]
It is ridiculous to extrapolate self-interest to species level.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSelf-interest is just that, maximizing ones own material gain.
No species has "species" level self-interest. We have plenty of history to suggest that we are willing to kill each other, regardless of benefits of trade, and to our long-term detriment. Anyone who has given birth or raised children realizes the extensive sacrifice of self-interest necessary. Our compulsion to breed, and our attachments, are biological and part of our cooperative nature. Trying to rationalize these things as part of some greater self-interest is foolish. Not to mention that plenty of us do fulfill our self-interest by accumulating material wealth and having no children.
Martin A. Nowak notes that for decades biologists have fretted over co-operation, although he acknowledges that examples of selfless behaviour abound in nature. He accepts the standard explanation that co-operation had evolved and identifies five principal mechanisms for the evolution of co-operation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut how does he reconcile his view of co-operation as the outcome of a process of evolution with his assertion that co-operation has worked alongside competition to help shape the evolution of life from as far back as “the first cells”? (Does he see a phase at the beginning of life before the evolution of cooperation?).
I would propose an alternative to the standard explanation. Co-operation as a general or common state of existence did not evolve (although particular modes of co-operation may have evolved). If, from the beginning there were forms of life which were distinct from each other, which had some degree of existence apart from each other, but could also interact with each other: then from the beginning there was a capacity for co-operation as well as a capacity for competition. Co-operative behaviour and competitive behaviour are recurrent and parallel themes of existence from the earliest and most primitive life forms to human beings and human societies: I would refer to my article ‘Co-operation did not evolve, co-operation is’ (http://cooperation-community.apjpublications.co.uk/coop2.htm ).
Im shocked it hasn't been mentioned yet, or maybe it has and I haven't seen but, but for those interested who have not read it yet but I highly recommend reading Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene. It has to have one of the best breakdowns of why we see altruism in evolution and its downsides and benefits. I assume most of you have read it, but if you haven't, do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne wonders what is the point of any religion? I think it is to define the relationship between the individual and what surrounds him (society, the universe). Cosmology intertwines with morality. What is becomes what should be. We all look for a program to apply to how we run our lives (and run other people's).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne expects scientific minds to be dispassionate and unemotional when exchanging idea (pretend you are Startrek's Mr Spock). But in the past many eminent scientists have become emotional in trying to discredit other scientists with contrary ideas, rather than be objective, so do not provide good examples to emulate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I first took an interest in palaeontology in my early teens I soon deduced that the story of life on Earth was a perpetual struggle between competition and co-operation. The geologic record seemed to imply that species aimed towards perfection on that level. To get to the next level they had to make a quantum jump, as did the lungfish in using their swim bladders as lungs instead of for their original purpose as buoyancy. Early competitive uni-celled life lost position to co-operative multi-celled life forms. These multi-celled animals then competed with each other until co-operative social animals beat them. Maybe with modern man it is competition between ideologies, an ideology of competition (capitalism) versus co-operation (socialism). But what has given socialism a bad name is that opportunists (those most selfish of competitors) like Stalin saw such organisations as a good vehicle for self-advancement, and took over those organisations, perverting them from their original course. Probably something similar happened with the early Catholic church (D.H. Lawrence believed that christianity and communism were manifestations of the same thing). Having worked with a non-profit charitable organisation for many years, I have found that any organisation that promises potential wealth or power attracts opportunists (you get rid of them by giving them work to do, rather than let them claim the credit for other people's work). Political parties are the prime example par excellence of this (politicians of opposing parties have more in common with each other than with the people they purport to represent). And so the struggle goes on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAside from the water skippers who would rather bounce each other around on the surface of a subject instead of diving deep into a concept of significance, the author makes a point long missed by both opponants and proponants of natural selection and evolution. Both competition and cooperation are part of the process and for most of life's history have worked in concert, using Nature as a referee, for we humans to emerge. Now, however, our advanced state of tool enhanced awareness has transferred many of the decissions once made by Nature to us, and our decissions as to the mix of competition and cooperation will determine our future. The choices are not easy, but we will certainly self destruct if we limit our play to petty games on the surface.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not on the main topic but, I would comment on "choice would keep him from ever marrying or having children for fear of burdening them with health consequences." I hope majority of readers understand that there are almost no risk for his children. Comparing natural error of DNA, UNSEAR estimate level of dose which double error is 1000mSv. And even if a dose exceed the level, his family can order DNA scan and avoid damaged DNA. Well not all people think that way. Probably more precisely, choice would keep him from ever having scientifically naive girlfriend. :-)
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