SuperCooperators

SuperCooperators PDF Author: Martin Nowak
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451626630
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Looks at the importance of cooperation in human beings and in nature, arguing that this social tool is as important an aspect of evolution as mutation and natural selection.

SuperCooperators

SuperCooperators PDF Author: Martin Nowak
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451626630
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Looks at the importance of cooperation in human beings and in nature, arguing that this social tool is as important an aspect of evolution as mutation and natural selection.

SuperCooperators

SuperCooperators PDF Author: Martin Nowak
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439110174
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
EVOLUTION IS OFTEN PRESENTED AS A STRICTLY COMPETITIVE ENDEAVOR. This point of view has had serious implications for the way we see the mechanics of both science and culture. But scientists have long wondered how societies could have evolved without some measure of cooperation. And if there was cooperation involved, how could it have arisen from nature “red in tooth and claw”? Martin Nowak, one of the world’s experts on evolution and game theory, working here with bestselling science writer Roger Highfield, turns an important aspect of evolutionary theory on its head to explain why cooperation, not competition, has always been the key to the evolution of complexity. He offers a new explanation for the origin of life and a new theory for the origins of language, biology’s second greatest information revolution after the emergence of genes. SuperCooperators also brings to light his game-changing work on disease. Cancer is fundamentally a failure of the body’s cells to cooperate, Nowak has discovered, but organs are cleverly designed to foster cooperation, and he explains how this new understanding can be used in novel cancer treatments. Nowak and Highfield examine the phenomena of reciprocity, reputation, and reward, explaining how selfless behavior arises naturally from competition; how forgiveness, generosity, and kindness have a mathematical rationale; how companies can be better designed to promote cooperation; and how there is remarkable overlap between the recipe for cooperation that arises from quantitative analysis and the codes of conduct seen in major religions, such as the Golden Rule. In his first book written for a wide audience, this hugely influential scientist explains his cutting-edge research into the mysteries of cooperation, from the rise of multicellular life to Good Samaritans. With wit and clarity, Nowak and Highfield make the case that cooperation, not competition, is the defining human trait. SuperCooperators will expand our understanding of evolution and provoke debate for years to come.

Super Cooperators

Super Cooperators PDF Author: Martin Nowak
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921758295
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Darwin's theory of evolution is infamous but it has one major chink. If life is all about survival of the fittest, then why do people risk their lives to save strangers? And what about charity and fairness? Why do we cooperate? Evolutionary scientists have struggled with this problem since the days of Darwin. Now Harvard's celebrated evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak has built on previous efforts, and his own research over two decades, to come up with five laws of cooperation, revealing how this very human characteristic is as fundamental as gravity. With the editor of New Scientist, Roger Highfield, he explains in this groundbreaking book that cooperation is central to the four-billion-year-old puzzle of life - how molecules in the primordial soup first crossed the watershed that separates dead chemistry from biochemistry. In Super CooperatorsNowak and Highfield deftly unpack the basic laws of cooperation to explain the most fundamental mechanics of everyday life.

Super Cooperators

Super Cooperators PDF Author: Martin A. Nowak
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 9781847673381
Category : Altruism
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Beyond The Survival of the Fittest: Why Cooperation, not Competition, is the Key to LifeIf life is about survival of the fittest, then why would we risk our own life to jump into a river to save a stranger? Some people argue that issues such as charity, fairness, forgiveness and cooperation are evolutionary loose ends, side issues that are of little consequence. But as Harvard's celebrated evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak explains in this groundbreaking and controversial book, cooperation is central to the four-billion-year-old puzzle of life. Indeed, it is cooperation not competition that is the defining human trait.

The Culture Code

The Culture Code PDF Author: Daniel Coyle
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0804176981
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Talent Code unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides tomorrow’s leaders with the tools to build a cohesive, motivated culture. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG AND LIBRARY JOURNAL Where does great culture come from? How do you build and sustain it in your group, or strengthen a culture that needs fixing? In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the world’s most successful organizations—including the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six, IDEO, and the San Antonio Spurs—and reveals what makes them tick. He demystifies the culture-building process by identifying three key skills that generate cohesion and cooperation, and explains how diverse groups learn to function with a single mind. Drawing on examples that range from Internet retailer Zappos to the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade to a daring gang of jewel thieves, Coyle offers specific strategies that trigger learning, spark collaboration, build trust, and drive positive change. Coyle unearths helpful stories of failure that illustrate what not to do, troubleshoots common pitfalls, and shares advice about reforming a toxic culture. Combining leading-edge science, on-the-ground insights from world-class leaders, and practical ideas for action, The Culture Code offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded. Culture is not something you are—it’s something you do. The Culture Code puts the power in your hands. No matter the size of your group or your goal, this book can teach you the principles of cultural chemistry that transform individuals into teams that can accomplish amazing things together. Praise for The Culture Code “I’ve been waiting years for someone to write this book—I’ve built it up in my mind into something extraordinary. But it is even better than I imagined. Daniel Coyle has produced a truly brilliant, mesmerizing read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, Originals, and Give and Take “If you want to understand how successful groups work—the signals they transmit, the language they speak, the cues that foster creativity—you won’t find a more essential guide than The Culture Code.”—Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

Evolution, Games, and God

Evolution, Games, and God PDF Author: Martin A. Nowak
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674075536
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
According to the reigning competition-driven model of evolution, selfish behaviors that maximize an organism’s reproductive potential offer a fitness advantage over self-sacrificing behaviors—rendering unselfish behavior for the sake of others a mystery that requires extra explanation. Evolution, Games, and God addresses this conundrum by exploring how cooperation, working alongside mutation and natural selection, plays a critical role in populations from microbes to human societies. Inheriting a tendency to cooperate, argue the contributors to this book, may be as beneficial as the self-preserving instincts usually thought to be decisive in evolutionary dynamics. Assembling experts in mathematical biology, history of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology, Martin Nowak and Sarah Coakley take an interdisciplinary approach to the terms “cooperation” and “altruism.” Using game theory, the authors elucidate mechanisms by which cooperation—a form of working together in which one individual benefits at the cost of another—arises through natural selection. They then examine altruism—cooperation which includes the sometimes conscious choice to act sacrificially for the collective good—as a key concept in scientific attempts to explain the origins of morality. Discoveries in cooperation go beyond the spread of genes in a population to include the spread of cultural transformations such as languages, ethics, and religious systems of meaning. The authors resist the presumption that theology and evolutionary theory are inevitably at odds. Rather, in rationally presenting a number of theological interpretations of the phenomena of cooperation and altruism, they find evolutionary explanation and theology to be strongly compatible.

Evolutionary Dynamics

Evolutionary Dynamics PDF Author: Martin A. Nowak
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674417755
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in the context of its evolution. Evolutionary change is the consequence of mutation and natural selection, which are two concepts that can be described by mathematical equations. Evolutionary Dynamics is concerned with these equations of life. In this book, Martin A. Nowak draws on the languages of biology and mathematics to outline the mathematical principles according to which life evolves. His work introduces readers to the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems, no matter how complicated they might seem. Evolution has become a mathematical theory, Nowak suggests, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical equations of evolutionary dynamics. His book presents a range of analytical tools that can be used to this end: fitness landscapes, mutation matrices, genomic sequence space, random drift, quasispecies, replicators, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, games in finite and infinite populations, evolutionary graph theory, games on grids, evolutionary kaleidoscopes, fractals, and spatial chaos. Nowak then shows how evolutionary dynamics applies to critical real-world problems, including the progression of viral diseases such as AIDS, the virulence of infectious agents, the unpredictable mutations that lead to cancer, the evolution of altruism, and even the evolution of human language. His book makes a clear and compelling case for understanding every living system—and everything that arises as a consequence of living systems—in terms of evolutionary dynamics.

The Social Conquest of Earth

The Social Conquest of Earth PDF Author: Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871403307
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year (Nonfiction) Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence (Nonfiction) From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career. Sparking vigorous debate in the sciences, The Social Conquest of Earth upends “the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover). Refashioning the story of human evolution, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to demonstrate that group selection, not kin selection, is the premier driving force of human evolution. In a work that James D. Watson calls “a monumental exploration of the biological origins of the human condition,” Wilson explains how our innate drive to belong to a group is both a “great blessing and a terrible curse” (Smithsonian). Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, the renowned Harvard University biologist presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere.

A Cooperative Species

A Cooperative Species PDF Author: Samuel Bowles
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400838835
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
A fascinating look at the evolutionary origins of cooperation Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin. In A Cooperative Species, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis—pioneers in the new experimental and evolutionary science of human behavior—show that the central issue is not why selfish people act generously, but instead how genetic and cultural evolution has produced a species in which substantial numbers make sacrifices to uphold ethical norms and to help even total strangers. The authors describe how, for thousands of generations, cooperation with fellow group members has been essential to survival. Groups that created institutions to protect the civic-minded from exploitation by the selfish flourished and prevailed in conflicts with less cooperative groups. Key to this process was the evolution of social emotions such as shame and guilt, and our capacity to internalize social norms so that acting ethically became a personal goal rather than simply a prudent way to avoid punishment. Using experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to calibrate models of the coevolution of genes and culture as well as prehistoric warfare and other forms of group competition, A Cooperative Species provides a compelling and novel account of how humans came to be moral and cooperative.

Virus Dynamics : Mathematical Principles of Immunology and Virology

Virus Dynamics : Mathematical Principles of Immunology and Virology PDF Author: Martin Nowak
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
ISBN: 0191588512
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
This groundbreaking book describes the emerging field of theoretical immunology, in particular the use of mathematical models to describe the spread of infectious diseases within patients. It reveals fascinating insights into the dynamics of viral and other infections, and the interactions between infectious agents and immune responses. Structured around the examples of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B, Nowak and May show how mathematical models can help researchers to understand the detailed dynamics of infection and the effects of antiviral therapy. Models are developed to describe the dynamics of drug resistance, immune responses, viral evolution and mutation, and to optimise the design of therapy and vaccines. - ;We know, down to the tiniest details, the molecular structure of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Yet despite this tremendous accomplishment, and despite other remarkable advances in our understanding of individual viruses and cells of the immune system, we still have no agreed understanding of the ultimate course and variability of the pathogenesis of AIDS. Gaps in our understanding like these impede our efforts towards developing effective therapies and preventive vaccines. Martin Nowak and Robert M May describe the emerging field of theoretical immunology in this accessible and well- written text. Using mathematical modelling techniques, the authors set out their ideas about how populations of viruses and populations of immune system cells may interact in various circumstances, and how infectious diseases spread within patients. They explain how this approach to understanding infectious diseases can reveal insights into the dynamics of viral and other infections, and the interactions between infectious agents and immune responses. The book is structured around the examples of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B virus, although the approaches described will be more widely applicable. The authors use mathematical tools to uncover the detailed dynamics of the infection and the effects of antiviral therapy. Models are developed to describe the emergence of drug resistance, and the dynamics of immune responses, viral evolution, and mutation. The practical implications of this work for optimisation of the design of therapy and vaccines are discussed. The book concludes with a glance towards the future of this fascinating, and potentially highly useful, field of study. - ;... an excellent introduction to a field that has the potential to advance substantially our understanding of the complex interplay between virus and host - Nature