Ulam Lecture Abstract

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 • 7:30 PM • James A. Little Theater, New Mexico School for the Deaf

Samuel Bowles Professor, Santa Fe Institute and University of Siena

A Cooperative Species—How We Got to Be Both Nasty and Nice

Humans are remarkably cooperative animals. We frequently engage in joint projects for the common benefit on a scale extending beyond the family to include total strangers. We do this even when contributions to the project are costly and yield little private benefit. Examples are upholding social norms even when a transgression would not be noticed, warfare, and actions to preserve the natural environment.

Lecture 1. A Cooperative Species (or are we just afraid someone may be looking?)
Since Darwin, the evolutionary origin of these and other examples of altruistic cooperation has puzzled biologists and economists where notions of 'selfish genes' and amoral Homo economicus hold sway. Drawing on archaeological, genetic, climatic, and other information about the conditions under which our distant ancestors lived, Bowles will show why standard explanations of human cooperation are inadequate.