The Evolution of Cooperation, with Nichola Raihani

S2 E23: The Evolution of Cooperation“Every multicellular being is a collective that operates as a whole - the individual is an ‘invention’ of evolution”Cooperation is at work up everywhere - from our ‘selfish’ genes working together in the genome, through to the democratic societies that regulate our collaboration.Cooperation is what distinguishes us most strikingly from our evolutionary cousin, the Chimpanzee. It is what allowed us safely to descend from the tree canopy into the savannah. It is what defended us from tyrants, helped us build agrarian societies, and forms the basis of our sense of justice and morality.But cooperation has a dark side: we collaborate to better compete. How we regulate that dark force is key to our survival.“Collaboration is the essential ingredient of and largest threat to our success”Listen to Nichola explain:The biological evolution of cooperation in humansHow we compare with other great collaborators: bees, ants and birdsThe evolution of society: from egalitarian to feudal to democraticWhy loneliness is physiologically harmfulWhen cooperation becomes murderousWhy evolution gave us the Tragedy of the CommonsHow the invention of Institutions changes the rules of the evolutionary gameWorks cited include:Christopher Boehm’s Reverse Dominance HierarchyPeter Turchin and his Z-CurveRichard Dawkins’ Selfish GeneRead the Full TranscriptNichola RaihaniNichola Raihani is a professor in Evolution and Behaviour at UCL, where she leads the Social Evolution and Behaviour Lab. She is the author of The Social Instinct: how cooperation shaped the worldOn Opinion is a member of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.More on this episodeLearn all about On OpinionMeet Turi Munthe: https://twitter.com/turiLearn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/aboutAnd visit us at: https://www.parlia.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Where do your opinions come from? Do we ‘think’ our world views, or ‘feel’ them? And what do our beliefs mean for politics and society? In each episode of On Opinion, Turi Munthe asks thought leaders to share their perspectives on why we think what we think and what it means for the world today, discussing everything from the war on truth to how to argue with people you hate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.