[hyperion2010]

Rather amusing title since it could be reworded as "Game theory still fails to explain biology." We know organisms cooperate. The fact that we consistently fail to find reasons to cooperate in game theory suggests that the simplifying assumptions that it makes are incorrect. To give only one example, what happens when agents can choose from among a set of games to play with opponents with known histories?

[KingMob]

Exactly correct. Why play with cheaters?

The fundamental flaw in applying game theory to biology is to constrain the possible outcomes when unfairness is detected. In game theory, all you can do is change your strategy for the next round; in reality, we have multiple punishments to bring to bear, such as refusing to play, public shaming, fines, imprisonment, killing, etc.

Game theory is only an "ok" model of cooperation/competition in real life.

[elektronjunge]

That's not a problem with game theory. That's a problem with using overly simplistic games. You can easily model all of those punishments with different payouts in a game. In fact, when I studied it in school most of the games we worked through included punishment mechanisms.

[DennisP]

More like "one very simple model within game theory fails to explain everything in biology." There's nothing here that invalidates the whole of game theory. If the payoff matrix doesn't match reality, then the theory will make inaccurate predictions. Some models do predict cooperation (like the snowdrift game mentioned in the article). It just depends on what the incentives are.

Also worth mentioning that while the classic game theory approach is to calculate the optimum strategy, there's also evolutionary game theory, which looks at what strategies could actually be found by an evolutionary process. They tend to be the same, but not always.

"Choosing among a set of games" seems to me to be just a bigger game. "Known histories" can include any iterated game, which is a basic part of game theory. It's also studied a lot in the context of poker, where the challenge is that if you deviate from the game-theory optimal strategy to better exploit your opponent, you open yourself up to exploitation.

[drawkbox]

People do cooperate on a self-survival instinct though, cooperating now let's you get ahead of others together. However, there are always competition and hierarchies within the team/group as well that determine choices and game theory within the group cooperating. The larger the team or less dependent then the more each player may be unhappy or not doing the best for themselves personally.

For the most part, people cooperate when the outcome of cooperating puts them at a better place. In the same way everyone is unique but they copy proven paths to achieve certain ends or move to certain stages where they can eventually break off and get ahead personally. In the same way groups suck but we all live better that there are other people.

All of life is similar, self-interested for survival, but they want a place of their own and territory, eventually.

[kriro]

For me comparative advantage (economics) was always enough to "justify" cooperation as a good general attitude in life.

[ajuc]

Comparative advantage theory (like most of economy) is a misleading simplification.

Historicaly the countries that were on the "low profit" end of international trade and followed the comparative advantage theory advice - lost (see Argentina), and the countries that contrary to the theory tried to move to more complex products/services and bigger profits - won (see Germany, USA), even if they had to abandon their comparative advantages, suffer international trade restrictions, etc to get there.

It turns out industrialization not only makes you better at producing machines - it also makes you better at producing food, and almost everything else. Meanwhile producing food just produces food.

[facepalm]

Organisms don't cooperate all the time, cheating is also common in the world of biology.

I find it fascinating that twisting the parameters changes the outcome. Thinking about our social world, for example fraud in finance, perhaps there is something to be learned about the way the rules of society should be set up to eliminate cheating.

[navait]

One thing the article fails to discuss is Evolutionarily Stable Strategies. Dawkins discusses the idea in The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype, and it can show how specific behaviors become resistant to invasion and thus settle in an equilibrium. It provides a much better model than the simple games.