History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Multi-Objective Optimization Using Evolutionary Algorithms

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Great Book
Great book; a must for engineers and scientists alike
The Reference in Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization

Multi-Objective Optimization Using Evolutionary Algorithms
Kalyanmoy Deb , and Deb Kalyanmoy
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Evolutionary Algorithms for Solving Multi-Objective Problems (Genetic and Evolutionary Computation)
Ant Colony Optimization (Bradford Books)
Differential Evolution: A Practical Approach to Global Optimization (Natural Computing Series)
Swarm Intelligence (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Artificial Intelligence)
Introduction to Evolutionary Computing (Natural Computing Series)

ASIN: 047187339X

Book Description

Evolutionary algorithms are relatively new, but very powerful techniques used to find solutions to many real-world search and optimization problems. Many of these problems have multiple objectives, which leads to the need to obtain a set of optimal solutions, known as effective solutions. It has been found that using evolutionary algorithms is a highly effective way of finding multiple effective solutions in a single simulation run.
· Comprehensive coverage of this growing area of research
· Carefully introduces each algorithm with examples and in-depth discussion
· Includes many applications to real-world problems, including engineering design and scheduling
· Includes discussion of advanced topics and future research
· Can be used as a course text or for self-study
· Accessible to those with limited knowledge of classical multi-objective optimization and evolutionary algorithms
The integrated presentation of theory, algorithms and examples will benefit those working and researching in the areas of optimization, optimal design and evolutionary computing. This text provides an excellent introduction to the use of evolutionary algorithms in multi-objective optimization, allowing use as a graduate course text or for self-study.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book.......2007-02-26

I highly recommend this book, it covers all the important subjects. A great acquisition!

Great book; a must for engineers and scientists alike.......2001-09-28

Kalyanmoy Deb has put together a great summary of the state of affairs in multiobjective genetic algorithms. Should you be an engineer or a scientist involved in the optimization of any design of sizeable complexity, you should read this book and become familiar with the techniques that have evolved over the last decade into powerful methods of optimization. This book is in many many ways bridging the gap from Michalewicz's and Fogel's book ("How to solve it") to the more modern era of this field (eg late nineties up to now...). So whereas those two authors never really considered multiobjective genetic algorithms, Deb plows through with the great expertize of a (perhaps even "the") leading researcher in that domain. This is a great book of _receipes_ with the level of details necessary to make use of them. It's a "how to" book; this is the one you have cracked open on your desk while you're hard coding it all up. However, it's not very well written with the prose being very terse and basically quite unengaging. But so what! In some sense yes perhaps, but Michalewicz and Fogel made a point that one can write technical litterature that one can also read. Perhaps they went overboard... in any case, Deb's book is about algorithms so who cares about whether the book puts you to sleep and it can do that, unfortunately. Apart from the unengaging style and the paucity of depth in the examples scope, the real problem with the book is not with the book itself, it's with the field of multiobjective optimization based on evolutionary methods. It's fairly evident that there is not much of any sort of fundamental understanding available at this time in support of why evolutionary techniques do work well, and they do, sometimes... If this understanding is available, you won't find it in Deb's book. If you are like me though, you won't care all that much really so long as the techniques are efficient and presented in a way that make them useable, and that's done right... But on the whole, it's a little unsatisfying because one's left with a panoply of various techniques and ways to define operators and representations but there is no insight given on which one might be best or how to craft them to particular situations. There is a lot of so-'n-so in reference this and that did it like this and it seems to work well there, however... The reason for this state of affairs is, of course, that nobody has a real clue, yet... But that is _not_ Deb's fault and this is not why, as a user, I'm not rating his book a full 5 stars. In some sense it could be rated as high as that but I thought the presentation was rather unengaging and not with all the breath and depth it could have had. So it's a 4.5 stars perhaps... let's say... but Amazon does not let me select 4.5 stars so it's 4, this edition at least...

The Reference in Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization.......2001-07-23

This is the first complete and updated text on Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs), covering all major areas clearly, thoughtfully and thoroughly. Thanks to the development of evolutionary computation MOEAs are now a well established technique for multi-objective optimization that finds multiple effective solutions in a single run. The widely interdisciplinary interest of engineers, scientists and mathematicians towards MOEAs has been evident during the first international conference on this topic (EMO2001,Zurich). The book is extremely useful for researchers working on multi-objective optimization in all branches of engineering and sciences, that will find a complete description of all available methodologies, starting from a detailed description and criticism of classical methods, towards a deep treating of the most advanced evolutionary techniques. Moreover several analytical test cases are given, covering all difficulties a MOEA encounters when converging towards the Pareto Optimal front. This set of test problems, together with several performance measurement parameters are essential when testing a new strategy before its application to a real-world problem. Despite the detail in advanced topics, Deb's book may be also used as a reference-book for a post-graduate course thanks to the scholarly coverage of basic arguments. As a final remark I strongly suggest everyone working on evolutionary computation and optimization to keep this book on the desk.

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Extended edition IS NOT EXTENDED!!!!
Reconciling Individual Interest with Collective Interest
The evolution is just beginning
How mutual hostility can evolve into cooperation.
Be good, be fair and forgive

The Evolution of Cooperation
Robert Axelrod
Manufacturer: Perseus Books Group
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Binding: Paperback

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The Complexity of Cooperation
The Strategy of Conflict
Choice and Consequence
Prisoner's Dilemma
Micromotives and Macrobehavior

ASIN: 0465005640

Book Description

Updated for the first time, the classic book on why cooperation is not only natural but also the best survival strategy

The Evolution of Cooperation addresses a simple yet age-old question: If living things evolve through competition, how can cooperation ever emerge? Despite the abundant evidence of cooperation all around us, there existed no purely naturalistic answer to this question until 1979, when Robert Axelrod famously ran a computer tournament featuring a standard game-theory exercise called The Prisoner's Dilemma. To everyone's surprise, the program that won the tournament, named Tit for Tat, was not only the simplest but the most "cooperative" entrant. This unexpected victory proved that cooperation--one might even say altruism--is mathematically possible and therefore needs no hidden hand or divine agent to create and sustain it. A great roadblock to the understanding of all sorts of behavior was at last removed. The updated edition includes an extensive new chapter on cooperation in cancer cells and among terrorist organizations.

"This book, if read, grasped and applied, could have a profound effect." (Wall Street Journal)

"A fascinating, provocative, and important book." (Douglas R. Hofstadter, author of Godel, Escher, Bach)

Customer Reviews:

Extended edition IS NOT EXTENDED!!!!.......2007-04-26

"The updated edition includes an extensive new chapter on cooperation in cancer cells and among terrorist organizations."

WHAT?? I bought this, with the new preface and cover, and it DID NOT CONTAIN NEW MATERIAL IN THE BOOK. I wrote the published, and THEY DID NOT REPLY. Crappers.

Reconciling Individual Interest with Collective Interest.......2005-12-10

The goal of a model is to explain complex reality with parsimony. This means that a model is a simplification of reality or approximation to some aspect of our world. Likewise, the goal of game-model is also to explain reality by abstracting the important features of reality for a particular problem.

Prisoners' Dilemma (PD) game has represented the reconstructed reality of international politics without overriding or overarching government authority, because it does not only explain persuasively why states have suffered from the problem of non-cooperation, but also show what states should do in international anarchy.

In PD game, the more self-interest each player pursues, the more collective interest both players lose. Nevertheless, they can not stop pursuing their self-interests. Otherwise, they will be faced to the worst case. As a result, all of players do not escape from social inefficiency and eternal conflict.

Hobbes, who described human existence in the state-of-nature as Bellum omnium contra omnes, suggested Leviathan as the solution to the dilemma. However, in that states exist in "international" anarchy, the argument is meaningless. If Hobbesian state-of-nature is the reality among nations, the world is in a constant state of war.

Axelrod finds the new puzzle in here: In situations where each individual has an incentive to be selfish, how can cooperation ever develop? His goal is to explain the cooperation under anarchy. To do so, he designs a variation of PD game with R > (T+S) / 2 value and introduces the concept of time. His explanation depends on the iterated PD game (IPD) where players do not know which is the final move.

Achieving socially efficient or Pareto-superior mutual cooperation in PD game is possible if the reciprocity works as times go by and the players consider the future consequences of their present actions with foresight (the reciprocity is emphasized much more than foresight). Especially, Tit-for-Tat (TFT) strategy and the Shadow of Future play a core role in explaining cooperation.

First of all, he sets five preconditions for IPD: (1) players cannot make any threat or prior commitment (2) there is no knowledge of the other players¡¦ upcoming move, as each game is simultaneous (3) the interaction among players can not be avoided (4) there is no way to change the other player's payoffs (5) the only communication allowed is through the player's own prior behavior.

Also, the concept of a discount parameter, w, which represents the degree to which the payoffs of each move are discounted relative to the previous move, is introduced. Thus, w is the weight of the next move in the future. As times go by, value tends to decrease in negative squares.

This can be represented as the sum of infinite series. The higher the value of w, the more likely the players will meet in the future. Contrarily, since 0
From this setting, Proposition (1) is derived: If the discount parameter, w is sufficiently high, there is no best strategy independent of the strategy used by the other player.

Also, Axelrod runs two computer tournaments by inviting the top game theorists, and reports that Rapoport¡¦s TFT was the best strategy. Although 15 programs in 1st tournament & 63 programs in 2nd tournament were submitted, TFT won all of them. TFT got the average score of 504.5 in 1st round & the score of 434.73 in 2nd round. Why?

He divides the reasons into 4: (1) TFT avoids unnecessary conflict by cooperating as long as the other player cooperates; this is being nice and never being the first to defect (2) TFT has no hesitation in retaliating in the face of the other's defection; that is, TFT does not wait to see if the defection was a mistake, as defection is to be punished immediately.

(3) TFT is open to forgiveness after responding to a provocation; in this way, a TFT player do not wait to reward cooperation (4) TFT has the clarity of behavior, so that the other player can adapt to TFT pattern more easily than others (TFT program length was the shortest). Thus, TFT could do well over a wide range of environments, against both nice and defection strategies.

Next, the stability of cooperation based upon TFT is discussed. He explores the relationship between a native population uniform strategy & a newcomer strategy. He assumes the existence of a native population employing strategy B & a newcomer using strategy A.

If the players interact with each other one at a time, the expected utility of the newcomer with A might be higher than the expected utility of one of the native population. In that case, A is said to invade B.

Otherwise, B is said to be collectively stable. When p is the frequency of a newcomer interacting with other newcomers, the condition of invasion by newcomers is:

(p)*EU(newcomer|newcomer)+(1-p)*EU(newcomer|native)>EU(native|native)

If p is between 0 & 1, newcomers¡¦ strategies can invade the strategy of the native population and vice versa. So, can TFT invade All D? Can All D invade TFT? Assume w = 0.9.

(p)*EU(TFT|TFT)+(1-p)*EU(TFT|All D)>EU(All D| All D)
(p)*[R/(1-w)]+(1-p)*[S+(w*P)/(1-w)]>P/(1-w)
(p)*[3/(1-0.9)]+(1-p)*[0+0.9*1/(1-0.9)]>[1/(1-0.9)]
(p)*(30)+(1-p)*(9)>10
21p+9>10
21p>1
p>1/21

(p)*EU(All D|All D)+(1-p)*EU(All D|TFT)>EU(TFT|TFT)
(p)*[P/(1-w)]+(1-p)*[T+(w*P)/(1-w)]>R/(1-w)
(p)*[1/(1-0.9)]+(1-p)*[5+0.9*1/(1-0.9)]>[3/(1-0.9]
(p)*(10)+(1-p)*(14)>30
10p+14¡V14p>30
10p+14-14p>30
-4p+14>30
-4p>16
p <-4

Thus, when the shadow of future is very strong (w = 0.9), TFT can invade All D if there is more than 1 TFT invader for every 21 All D natives. It takes so few. Also, All D cannot invade TFT when w is sufficiently high (strictly speaking, the critical value of w for TFT to be collectively stable is 2/3).

From this, he derives additional 6 Propositions. The most interesting one among them is Proposition (6)The strategies which can invade All D in a cluster with the smallest value of p are those which are maximally discriminating, such as TFT. This means that cooperation is possible even in the world of All D, as long as small clusters of discriminating invaders with TFT have a small proportion of interactions in the Hobbes state-of-nature.

More interestingly, he shows that cooperation could emerge even without friendship. Let-and-Let-Live system (i.e., the static nature of trench warfare) might be considered as the prototype that small TFT interactions invaded the strategy of All D native population on war. However, Axelrod also mentions that the stability of cooperation based upon the reciprocity can be impaired by (1) the rotation of troops (2) the artillery less dependent on reciprocity for its life than infantry in trench (3) the raids.

However, pointing out that Chapter 4 is about interaction among human beings who can evaluate the reciprocity and respond to it rationally, he argues that such understanding by the participants is not really necessary for cooperation to emerge and prove stable.

Therefore, he argues that (1) cooperation is possible without morality or foresight as shown in the relationship between crocodiles and crocodile birds (2) the patterns of unconscious responsiveness of bacteria or organism might lead to the cooperation based upon the reciprocity (3) the evolutionary process depends upon individual advantage (not benefits to whole group), which unintentionally leads to the cooperation based upon the reciprocity.

In addition, he suggests four advices on how to choose effectively under a given strategic setting: (1) Do not be envious; TFT never wins head to head, so players must realize that an IPD is not a zero-sum game (2) Do not be the first to defect so long as the future remains important, based on Proposition 1 (3) Reciprocate cooperation and defection but begin with cooperation (4) Do not be too clever; be clear about your strategy so others can figure out what you are doing. Again, TFT is the strategy which satisfies all of the advices.

Especially, five ways on how to promote cooperation is discussed in aspect of changing the strategic setting: (1) Enlarge the Shadow of the Future by making the interactions more durable and more frequent (2) Change the payoffs; The change of payoffs determines the incentives of behavior (3) Teach people to care about each other (4) Teach reciprocity; Do not forget the negative effect of All C that might spoil the other players (5) Improve recognition abilities; Accumulate the credibility of reciprocity through good history of interactions.

Finally, the social structure of cooperation is discussed. The social structure influences on how the evolution of cooperation can begin. The influence might constrain or facilitate cooperation, or make the evolutionary process of cooperation dynamic. Namely, the relationship between the social structure and the cooperation in IPD can be understood as being equal to the relationship between the culture and the institution.

As the institutional performance depends largely upon culture, so the speed and the range of the evolution of cooperation is determined greatly by the social structure such as labels, reputation, regulation, and territoriality. Fist, labels (i.e., stereotype) might decrease the importance of the benefits due to mutual cooperation. This is related closely to the debates on the distributional effect of collective interest.

Second, the importance of reputation as a bully might delay the speed of cooperation. Third, relating to regulation, the government in here is not Leviathan, but a player interacting with the governed on compliance and flexibility. In this case, the efficiency of the exchange of flexibility with compliance determines the evolutionary process of cooperation among them.

Finally, in that the territorial system (i.e., positional picture) influences the way the players interact with each other which determines the course of the evolutionary process, territoriality as the social structure matters.

Axelrod concludes: (1) Cooperation has staying power but the biggest problem is getting cooperation started (2) Ratchet effect: Cooperation is successful incrementally, as clusters of cooperation build upon clusters cooperation (3) Cooperation is a rational possibility, even without a central authority, as long as the future is sufficiently important (4) Reconciling individual interest with collective interest is possible by TFT.

Recently, Fearon (1995), Morrow (1999) and Powell (2005) argue that one of the reasons why the Pareto-inferior outcomes such as ex post costly wars have recurred is due to the commitment problem. Morrow (1999: 92) maintains, Commitment is a problem when actors' incentives change over time.

Although Axelrod and they consider the concept of time seriously, their conclusions are totally different. While they focus on explaining the cause of war in PD (i.e., In PD, one player's commitment to C can not be believed by other player), his interest is placed on explaining the cause of cooperation in PD (i.e., what matters in PD, is not unilateral commitment, but mutual learning effect by TFT).

However, Axelrod seems to be superior to them, because he might explain both war and cooperation with the level of w. But, Fearon, Morrow, and Powell might suffer from selection bias, because the commitment problem explains only wars.

References

Axelrod, Robert (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. Basic Books.

Fearon, James D (1995). Rationalist Explanations for War. International Organization 49 (3): 379-414.

Morrow, James D (1999). The Strategic Setting of Choices: Signaling, Commitment, and Negotiation in International Politics. In Strategic Choice and International Relations, ed. David A. Lake and Robert Powell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 77-114.

Poundstone, William (1992). Prisoners' Dilemma. Anchor Book.

Powell, Robert (2005). War as a Commitment Problem. International Organization (forthcoming)

The evolution is just beginning.......2005-09-10

Amidst the glowing 5-star reviews I feel the need to interject some concerns and outright criticisms of this book, although I do recommend its reading. Certainly the book provides a relatively good starting point in a very complex area, but it should not be construed as the final word on a much more complex subject. I do think that R. Axelrod provides an excellent, if at times overbearing, presentation of how game theory, specifically in the realm of an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD) scenrario, can explain a number of historical as well as daily situations. He goes on to expound on some good generalizations on how people might act to inspire more cooperation and these generalizations, if implemented by people (groups, governments, etc.), might result in a more cooperative world. For this, there are good things to say. But I would caution not to create from this any utopian potential for the real world.

The `winning strategy' of TIT FOR TAT (TFT) works because it starts out `nice' but it retaliates immediately if someone else does not `play nice', too. So this is not vision of world cooperation. It is a realistic vision of maximizing cooperation under specific conditions which he covers relatively well towards the later chapters. Ultimately, the natural take away is a hopeful view of a potentially more cooperative environment, with perhaps a bit of forgetting that unkind retaliation is an integral part of his winning `cooperative' strategy.

Here are some aspects which Mr. Axelrod alludes to but somewhat minimizes, in my opinion, in their impact on TFT's potential for success in real world interactions:

a) The IPD strategies, which were submitted by experts from around the world, were submitted to computerized testing to determine which strategies `win' the most. This is based on an established point system that awards different points for different actions by two players. (This is summarized in one review already, so I will not repeat it here.) While this makes the playing of the game easy and consistent, it does not reflect the real world conditions which often exist. For example, if, in one turn, one player `defects' and the other `cooperates', the point system says the defector `wins' 5 points and the cooperator gets nothing. Are all defections `equal' in the real world? Or are some interactions far more important than others, so therefore cooperating on small things but defecting on bigger things might result in different outcomes than would ever be accounted for in the point systems used in these studies? Intuitively, a major defection may have far more significance (i.e. point value) than a minor one, but to accomplish his analysis, Axelrod's point structure is always the same.
b) Related to the above, are all joint cooperative efforts or joint defections `equal' as implied by the point values? (When two strategies cooperate, each is awarded 3 points. When each defect, they each get 1.) At the time this book was being published, an interesting `real world' example was playing out which would question this very assumption. At that time, Reagan was building up the military and the Soviet Union was `matching' the build up. You can either view this as mutual defection or mutual cooperation, depending upon whether you view cooperation as always a `positive' thing. In any event, the results of these mutual actions were NOT equal. The US had far more resources to invest in the game so each time `points' were awarded, the US actually gained more than the Soviets who eventually had to stop playing. Consistent point values simply do not account for this, unless one wants to interject additional elements not presented in Axelrod's work.
c) Related to point b), the IPD study presents things from a vantage point that each actor starts out from an equal footing and therefore the only functional question is whether one strategy consistently wins in such a way as to keep near the top of the point standings. In reality, rarely does any person or group begin interaction on an equal footing. What I am trying to raise is not the same as his discussions in Chapters 8 and 9 on the strength and growth of various strategies in a world starting out with many different strategies. In those scenarios, some strategies die out because they stop having sources of points to take from others. But what if each strategy starts out from an unequal basis, some having significantly more `capital' to expend and coupling this to a more realistic scenario where each interaction is not free, but each has a cost to the participant (somewhat like putting your bet down before you play poker - you may win or lose, but if you lose your position is not the same as when you started, it is less than when you started). In such a scenario, which is more realistic in terms of how companies, governments and even people interact, the results would be materially different. So the starting premise of Axelrod's IPD scenario and point schemes may be so well constructed as to make for interesting descriptions of some specific and even common interactions, but it may be too well constructed to be able to be extrapolated to many more complex situations.
d) Another weakness is the assumption that all defections are of the same magnitude. If, in an otherwise nice political campaign (ever seen one of those?) a small, third party candidate launches an attack ad and the attacked major party retaliates, is the retaliation equal? Or, again, does their starting point allow them to annihilate the attacker? (Since I have never seen a positive political campaign, you can interject any other similar scenario which might actually come up in real life!) The `equal points for equal actions' premise is inherently flawed. Yet this is the basis of much of the book's conclusions.
e) What is the end result of a universe where everyone uses a TFT strategy? This is only marginally considered, at best. While the issue had been in my mind throughout much of the book, it was not until fairly late that Axelrod makes clear, albeit briefly, that in any set of two player interactions, TFT will at best result in the same total number of points as the other player and, for a number of reasons, probably slightly less. In other words, the person, company, group or government using a pure TFT strategy must be happy being close to the best in whatever the interaction. Personally, I am fine with that, thank you! But to assume that everyone is and that nobody will come up with a disruptive strategy that, perhaps only for a time, garners more points but winds up putting them on top of the heap in whatever competition may be in play. If the end game is the Superbowl, being second is not gratifying. Ask Philadelphia.
f) Finally, I found some of the descriptors attached to the strategies interesting, especially in light of Axelrod's ending recommendations on cooperation. Some strategies which attempted to use planned defection as part of their strategy were labeled as `meanies' while other strategies that started their initial moves with cooperation were labeled as `nice'. I find it interesting that a `scientist' would use such descriptors to classify things given that they bring with them connotations. Even TFT could be construed as a `meanie' since one of its logical outcomes is that it cooperates once, and once only, only to defect from then on based on the other parties action. Are all non-cooperative interactions except one inherently more `nice'? This is not important in the scope of my real concerns, but I always sense a red flag rising when an otherwise objective presentation resorts to affect-linked labels to make part of its case.

All of the above is NOT to imply that I think Axelrod's work is wrong and should be thrown out. I simply felt that, unlike the rest of the glowing reviews, Axelrod's work does not go far enough and leaves some gaping holes yet to be explored. Read this book, but keep your eyes and mind open for the flaws which seem to be thinly covered with papier-mâché.

How mutual hostility can evolve into cooperation........2005-03-01

Without question, the case studies in this book have applications in biology, sociology, international relations, economics and business. The basic question put forward is, "How is it possible, that in an environment of mutual hostility where acting selfishly will lead to gain against your opponent(s), cooperative behavior between the antagonists will emerge and become the dominant long-term behavior?" It turns out that it is easy to see how such behavior can emerge, even in hostile battlefield conditions. In fact, cooperative behavior has distinct evolutionary advantages.
The solution is found within game theory, in particular the situation known as the Prisoner's Dilemma. Two people, (one and two), who jointly committed a crime are arrested for the crime and placed in separate rooms where they cannot communicate. The police interrogate him or her separately and offer each individual a deal. If they defect and testify against their comrade, they will be given a reduced sentence. In this situation, there are four possible outcomes:

1) Neither defects - both go free, each is considered to have earned a positive reward.
2) One defects and two does not - one is set free and two serves a long sentence.
3) Two defects and one does not - two is set free and one serves a long sentence.
4) One and two both defect - each serve a reduced sentence.

In the problem, reward values are assigned to the results, and typical values are

1) Both one and two are both assigned a value of +3.
2) One is assigned a value of +3 and two the value of -5.
3) Two is assigned a value of +3 and one the value of -5.
4) One and two are both assigned a value of -1.

It is clear that each prisoner wants to avoid the situation where they are the only one who serves time in jail. Therefore, if this event will only occur once, then option four will be the result and cooperation will not take place.
However, if both prisoners have the potential for a future relationship, where that relationship has the real potential for rewards for cooperation and punishments for defecting, then option one can emerge. The best demonstration of this is what took place in some sectors of the western front in the First World War. When the same units faced each other for extended periods of time, a live and let live policy emerged on both sides. Each side adopted a strategy of not engaging in lethal force, unless the other side did. When required to expend artillery ammunition to demonstrate aggressiveness to superiors, they would shoot the same target at the same time of the day. Since their firing was predictable, soldiers on the other side would know to avoid that area and in fact would often climb out of their trench to observe the explosions.
There were instances where German snipers would demonstrate their prowess by continuing to hit the same position on a wall until they made a hole. Therefore, even though superiors admonished the soldiers to continue to kill the enemy and both sides had the capability, the fact that they had a lengthy relationship allowed the cooperation to occur. These phenomena did not take place in regions where units did not face each other for extended periods.
The first chapter describes tournaments, where computer programs competed against each other by defecting or cooperating and the scoring is similar to that of the Prisoner's Dilemma already mentioned. What emerged as the most successful tactic, even when the results of the first round were incorporated into the second round, is the TIT FOR TAT. This strategy is very simple, cooperate in the first round and for each successive round, do what the opponent did in the previous one.
I was fascinated by these results and it was easy to see the obvious implications for relationships of all types. For cooperation to occur, all that is necessary is that there be the expectation of a continued relationship and the potential for future rewards/penalties. What makes it especially interesting is that no appeal to morality, ethics or any other abstract concept need be made. The behavior occurs as a consequence of an increase in the long-term gain for all parties.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

Be good, be fair and forgive.......2005-02-16

A mathematical tale of how, if cooperation can benefit parties (which it very often does), the most profitable behaviour is initial trust (offer a hand), mirroring reciprocity (good for good, bad for bad), total forgiveness (only account for the last move) and lack of any further cleverness, calculations or speculations.
The most amazing results are that, if behaving this way in a minimally stable environment, you never benefit more than your counterpart while you always benefit most overall, that you systematically promote total cooperation, that a few pioneers can teach large groups of non-cooperative bullies and that this behaviour beautifully resists aggression.
The work of Robert Axelrod is amazing in its transparency and applicability, and enlightening in its hopeful conclusions. Thumbs up.

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Subtle and surprisingly casual- a really entertaining book.

Evolution of the Social Contract
Brian Skyrms
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
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The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure
Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life (Economic Learning and Social Evolution)
The Evolution of Cooperation
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Game Theory and the Social Contract, Vol. 1: Playing Fair

ASIN: 0521555833

Book Description

In this highly readable book, Brian Skyrms, a recognized authority on game and decision theory, investigates traditional problems of the social contract in terms of evolutionary dynamics. Game theory is skillfully employed to offer new interpretations of a wide variety of social phenomena, including justice, mutual aid, commitment, convention and meaning. The book is not technical and requires no special background knowledge. As such, it could be enjoyed by students and professionals in a wide range of disciplines: political science, philosophy, decision theory, economics and biology.

Customer Reviews:

Subtle and surprisingly casual- a really entertaining book........1998-03-30

I originally picked up this book due to a glowing print review given to it by Freeman Dyson and I wasn't at all disapointed. I found it to be a really remarkably in-depth treatment of the subject matter considering the relatively meager length and yet it was simple, direct and unpretentious. ( I would preface this book, however, with a more inclusive work on Game theory if you're interested. It's not necessary to understand the thesis or learn from the experiments but there are many principal concepts in Game theory that he never defines completely- such as Nash Equilibrium. I suggest William Poundstone's "The Prisoner's Dilemma")

I think the final chapter is one of the most compelling explanations available in print of how differential reproduction can and does most frequently create environments where individuals of a species engage in activities that benefit the group at their own personal expense. He leads directly to the point of any given chapter without beating you over the head with it and by the time you get there, you realize that it was without resorting to extensive technical language or drawing on a huge number of oblique studies. It probably doesn't need to be said that this book doesn't provide much to the "rational choice social contract" thinkers and I think the title is more than enough to steer them away, anyway.

Book Description

Gull chicks beg for food from their parents. Peacocks spread their tails to attract potential mates. Meerkats alert family members of the approach of predators. But are these--and other animals--sometimes dishonest? That's what William Searcy and Stephen Nowicki ask in The Evolution of Animal Communication. They take on the fascinating yet perplexing question of the dependability of animal signaling systems.

The book probes such phenomena as the begging of nesting birds, alarm calls in squirrels and primates, carotenoid coloration in fish and birds, the calls of frogs and toads, and weapon displays in crustaceans. Do these signals convey accurate information about the signaler, its future behavior, or its environment? Or do they mislead receivers in a way that benefits the signaler? For example, is the begging chick really hungry as its cries indicate or is it lobbying to get more food than its brothers and sisters?

Searcy and Nowicki take on these and other questions by developing clear definitions of key issues, by reviewing the most relevant empirical data and game theory models available, and by asking how well theory matches data. They find that animal communication is largely reliable--but that this basic reliability also allows the clever deceiver to flourish. Well researched and clearly written, their book provides new insight into animal communication, behavior, and evolution.

Customer Reviews:

Undeceived.......2007-05-22

Searcy and Nowicki are two of the best behaviorists anywhere who study animal communication. This book is a thorough examination of signals that "must be" truthful by their nature and those than the sender can fake. Everyone interested in animal signaling should read this book.

The Theory of Learning in Games (Economic Learning and Social Evolution)

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This book is not about learning but the application of nonlinear dynamics
Learning Learning in Games
Good book

The Theory of Learning in Games (Economic Learning and Social Evolution)
Drew Fudenberg , and David K. Levine
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Evolutionary Game Theory
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A Course in Game Theory
Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict
Auction Theory

ASIN: 0262061945

Book Description

In economics, most noncooperative game theory has focused on equilibrium in games, especially Nash equilibrium and its refinements. The traditional explanation for when and why equilibrium arises is that it results from analysis and introspection by the players in a situation where the rules of the game, the rationality of the players, and the players' payoff functions are all common knowledge. Both conceptually and empirically, this theory has many problems.

In The Theory of Learning in Games Drew Fudenberg and David Levine develop an alternative explanation that equilibrium arises as the long-run outcome of a process in which less than fully rational players grope for optimality over time. The models they explore provide a foundation for equilibrium theory and suggest useful ways for economists to evaluate and modify traditional equilibrium concepts.

Customer Reviews:

This book is not about learning but the application of nonlinear dynamics.......2005-09-02

This book does not provide valuable information about learning systems. It demonstrates, that nonlinear dynamics can be used to describe a subclass of learning. I personally doubt, that this subclass is of great interest, because it neglects completely heuristic strategies in game playing. Besides this, nonlinear dynamics is only useful if the number of parameter of the system is small. I doubt, that these toy examples are sufficient to describe reality, e.g., economics.

Moreover, the organization of the book and the style it is written in, is in my view not favorable.

I guess, this book is for a very small readership that does not have to worry about the correspondence of a model with nature. But also from this perspective it can not be recommended, because it is not written well. Both thumbs down!

Learning Learning in Games.......2003-01-28

An excellent treatise on some important work in the theory of learning in games. Fudenberg and Levine provide a good coverage of standard myopic play dynamics with a special emphasis on ficticious play and replicator dynamics. I particularly liked the sections going through the Kandori, Mailath and Rob (1993) model as well as Young (1993) on the evolution of convention.

The treatments of dynamic systems analysis, elementary game theory, stochastic approximation theory, etc., are necessarily short. The appendices do not suffice for a reader without a reasonable background.

Nonetheless an essential read for anybody doing serious work in learning, or wanting to know what all the fuss is about.

Good book.......2000-07-27

During the work on my master thesis ("Learning in strategic games") i bought several books about the topic. This is the one of them. Chapters 1 and 2 (Introduction, Fictitious Play) are really good introduction into the subject. The following chapters evolve the theory further giving some good ideas for practical implementation (I was writing a C program which had to be able to play the game and to learn). I would recommend this book to anyone interested in relatively new field - Learning in games.

Does Game Theory Work? The Bargaining Challenge (Economic Learning and Social Evolution)

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Game Theory Works, but Not Always Binmore's Way

Does Game Theory Work? The Bargaining Challenge (Economic Learning and Social Evolution)
Ken Binmore
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Playing for Real: A Text on Game Theory
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ASIN: 0262026074

Book Description

This volume brings together all of Ken Binmore's influential experimental papers on bargaining along with newly written commentary in which Binmore discusses the underlying game theory and addresses the criticism leveled at it by behavioral economists.

When Binmore began his experimental work in the 1980s, conventional wisdom held that game theory would not work in the laboratory, but Binmore and other pioneers established that game theory can often predict the behavior of experienced players very well in favorable laboratory settings. The case of human bargaining behavior is particularly challenging for game theory. Everyone agrees that human behavior in real-life bargaining situations is governed at least partly by considerations of fairness, but what happens in a laboratory when such fairness considerations supposedly conflict with game-theoretic predictions? Behavioral economists, who emphasize the importance of other-regarding or social preferences, sometimes argue that their findings threaten traditional game theory. Binmore disputes both their interpretations of their findings and their claims about what game theorists think it reasonable to predict.

Binmore's findings from two decades of game theory experiments have made a lasting contribution to economics. These papers--some coauthored with other leading economists, including Larry Samuelson, Avner Shaked, and John Sutton--show that game theory does indeed work in favorable laboratory environments, even in the challenging case of bargaining.

Customer Reviews:

Game Theory Works, but Not Always Binmore's Way.......2007-07-12

Ken Binmore is the Renaissance Man of game theory, combining a strong analytical presence and an excellent record of empirical research with a deep appreciation for the social role of game theory and its relationship to evolutionary biology, anthropology, and philosophy. "Does game theory work?' is mainly a compilation of his bargaining experiments, but it includes an new introduction explaining the issues behind the title of the book and offering an answer to the question.

The main issue behind the question is the body of experimental results that show that individuals often behave in ways not predicted by classical game theory. This body of data includes the investigation of logic and decision-making by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and his coworkers on Bayesian rationality and the more recent body of experiments on strategic interaction in social dilemmas.

I agree with Binmore's answer, which is that game theory does work, but I think he is wrong and/or misleading in many of the points he makes in the books introductory chapter. For a broader treatment of these issues, see Herbert Gintis, "Behavioral Ethics Meets Natural Justice", Politics, Philosophy and Economics 5,1 (2006):5-32. Since I am one of the "behavioral economists" who comes into criticism in this chapter, I shall begin by stating my own views. Classical game theory holds that rational actors are self-regarding in the sense that they care only about their own material payoff in games, and they will play in ways that implement Nash equilibria. I think the evidence overwhelmingly supports this prediction in market-like interactions in which individuals cannot affect the behavior of others through strategic interaction. Indeed, Vernon Smith received the Nobel prize in economics largely for showing that this is the case. However, when individuals come into direct, personal, strategic interaction, the classical predictions fail. This is not in the first instance because there is any problem with game theory, but rather because the self-regarding model of human preferences is incorrect. Rather, people care about fairness, honesty, trustworthiness, and are strong reciprocators in the sense that they prefer to return kindness for kindness and unkindness for unkindness, even when this is personally costly in material terms.

Binmore's position, by contrast, is that there is nothing wrong with the neoclassical model of the individual as a largely selfish maximizer of personal material gain, and the apparent value of fairness, reciprocity, and ethical virtue exhibited in experimental settings arise because either the monetary stakes are very low, or the game is so complex that individual deploy behaviors from every-day life in which these values help a selfish individual to establish and maintain a reputation that is selfishly maximizing in the long run, or individuals simply haven't had enough time to learn how to behave selfishly. I think each of these arguments is incorrect.

First, does the fact that when the monetary stakes increase people behave more selfishly contradict the other-regarding preferences model? Not at all. A simple application of the economist's rational actor model shows that unless one cares infinitely about the non-monetary payoffs, when the when the monetary rewards to a selfish behavior increase and the non-monetary rewards for unselfish behavior are held constant, behavior will shift towards the selfish behavior. For instance, suppose a fraction f(p) of subjects are willing to sacrifice an amount of money p to behave honestly. Then, as p increases, we expect f to fall; i.e. the higher the cost of being honest, the lower the fraction of the subject pool who will act honestly.

Second, it is true, as Binmore stresses, that in many experimental games, subjects begin by playing unselfishly but when the game is repeated many times, they end up behaving selfishly. Binmore interprets this as "learning to play the game," so the original behavior is not altruistic, but simply mistaken. For instance, in the public goods game, subjects begin by contributing more than half their income to the public pool, but after ten rounds, they contribute almost nothing. Is this because they learned how to play? Not at all. It is because some players do not contribute, and contributors feel cheated and respond by not contributing themselves. We know that this is the correct explanation because if we restart the game with experienced subjects, the same people who contributed nothing at the end of the last series of tries, begin by contributing at their original level (Andreoni, Journal of Pubic Economics, 1988).

Binmore's final argument, that acts of altruism and kindness demonstrated in the laboratory are due to subjects' mistaking the one-shot anonymity of the laboratory for the repeated game, reputation-formation environment of everyday life, is equally without foundation. The most important indication of this is that in fact we experience many one-shot anonymous encounters in everyday life, and people are quite capable of telling the difference between such events and the recurrent ones we share with family, friends, and coworkers. The idea that anonymous one-shots are rare and we are unaccustomed to dealing with them is not plausible.

Binmore believes that repeated game theory's Folk Theorem is sufficient to explain human cooperation, and other-regarding preferences are just a small wrinkle in human behavior. This is bizarre coming from Binmore, who stresses throughout that people only learn to play simple games, whereas the Nash equilibria implemented by the Folk Theorem are horribly complex and depend on highly implausible constructs, such as individuals actually playing mixed strategies, signals been public, a mechanism existing to choose among the continuum of equilibria available, and some dynamical mechanism by which behavior is coordinated and stabilized. For groups of more than five or six agents, the Folk Theorem is a poor model of behavior indeed, and has no empirical support.

Binmore stresses that social institutions choose efficient equilibria from among the myriad Nash equilibria envisioned by the Folk Theorem, but there is no analytical model that supports this assertion. Indeed, as Aumann (1987) has shown, under many plausible conditions the natural equilibrium concept for game theory is the correlated equilibrium, which is highly amenable to instantiation through social institutions. However, it is a long distance from this plausible notion to the idea that human cooperation is based in the main on selfishness, and the other-regarding preferences and ethical proclivities of humans is just a little icing on the cake. My own view is that human society is predicated on our predisposition to behave ethically, and a society of selfish sociopaths, however patient and however enlightened to their own self-interest, would offers lives that are overarchingly nasty, brutish and short.

Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics

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The Best There Is On Evolutionary Dynamics

Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics
Josef Hofbauer , and Karl Sigmund
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life
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ASIN: 052162570X

Book Description

Every form of behavior is shaped by trial and error. Such stepwise adaptation can occur through individual learning or through natural selection, the basis of evolution. Since the work of Maynard Smith and others, it has been realized how game theory can model this process. Evolutionary game theory replaces the static solutions of classical game theory by a dynamical approach centered not on the concept of rational players but on the population dynamics of behavioral programs. In this book the authors investigate the nonlinear dynamics of the self-regulation of social and economic behavior, and of the closely related interactions among species in ecological communities. Replicator equations describe how successful strategies spread and thereby create new conditions that can alter the basis of their success, i.e., to enable us to understand the strategic and genetic foundations of the endless chronicle of invasions and extinctions that punctuate evolution. In short, evolutionary game theory describes when to escalate a conflict, how to elicit cooperation, why to expect a balance of the sexes, and how to understand natural selection in mathematical terms.

Customer Reviews:

The Best There Is On Evolutionary Dynamics.......2000-07-14

When I was writing the chapter on evolutionary dynamics for my book Game Theory Evolving (Princeton, 2000), I looked at all the books available and found nothing. Then Hofbauer and Sigmund's new book (a totally revised version of their earlier Theory of Evolution and Dynamical Systems) came out, and I knew I had a masterpiece in hand.

The book does not assume the reader knows basic differential equation theory--it presents all the theory necessary. Indeed, it is a wonderful way to learn differential equation theory, since one immediately is faced with meaningful problems to solve. It does assume the reader is familiar with multivariate calculus. The book should be accessible to biologists and game theorists with a minimum understanding of each other's disciplines.

There are four parts. First, HS deal with Lotka-Volterra equations of the type prevalent in predator-prey models, which they extend to ecological models and several populations. Like the rest of the book, there are lots of problems and the presentation is elegant and succinct.

The second part deals with game theory dynamics and replicator equations, including sections on evolutionary games and asymmetric games. This too is extremely nicely presented, and the links to the Lotka-Volterra models are made clear.

Part three is on dynamical systems especially of relevance to biochemistry--catalytic hypercycles--as well as higher dimensional phase space dynamics of ecological models.

Part four deal with population genetic models using a differential equation approach. This section is also excellent, though for serious readers it should be complemented by Karlin and Taylor's Second Course in Stochastic Processes (which is much more mathematically demanding).

Book Description

All of life is a game and evolution by natural selection is no exception. The evolutionary game theory developed in this book provides the tools necessary for understanding many of nature’s mysteries, including co-evolution, speciation, extinction and the major biological questions regarding fit of form and function, diversity, procession, and the distribution and abundance of life. Mathematics for the evolutionary game are developed based on Darwin's postulates leading to the concept of a fitness generating function (G-function). G-function is a tool that simplifies notation and plays an important role developing Darwinian dynamics that drive natural selection. Natural selection may result in special outcomes such as the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). An ESS maximum principle is formulated and its graphical representation as an adaptive landscape illuminates concepts such as adaptation, Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection, and the nature of life’s evolutionary game.

Download Description

All of life is a game and evolution by natural selection is no exception. The evolutionary game theory developed in this book provides the tools necessary for understanding many of nature's mysteries, including co-evolution, speciation, extinction and the major biological questions regarding fit of form and function, diversity, procession, and the distribution and abundance of life. Mathematics for the evolutionary game are developed based on Darwin's postulates leading to the concept of a fitness generating function (G-function). G-function is a tool that simplifies notation and plays an important role developing Darwinian dynamics that drive natural selection. Natural selection may result in special outcomes such as the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). An ESS maximum principle is formulated and its graphical representation as an adaptive landscape illuminates concepts such as adaptation, Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection, and the nature of life's evolutionary game.

Customer Reviews:

A little bit disappointing.......2006-04-19

I am not a biologist, but an engineer interested in evolution and mathematics.
The mathematics of the book is very easy, the only (very) confusing issue are the indices.
The G-function is introduced a bit ad-hoc, but as a definition, this might not matter much. It is very clear, that by allowing the strategy to vary, one can get optimal (at least stationary) values. The strategy dynamics are introduced in a rather confusing way, without much of an explanation.

For the rest, it seems, that 80% of the book are numerical examples, which seem to prove mostly, that with nonlinear differential equations, the behaviour of (e.g.) stationary points can vary quite a bit, if the coefficients in those equations are changed.

Maybe a professional biologist gets a lot out of this book, but for the interested layman it offers little (except upteen numerical examples, see above)

Mathematical Darwinism.......2005-11-17

First, full disclosure: I am a colleague and friend of the authors, Thomas L. Vincent and Joel S. Brown, and I reviewed the entire book during its writing.

Game theory is a fairly recent development in mathematics, having been introduced in the 1940's. Evolutionary Game Theory is more recent yet - Maynard Smith and Price put it on the map with their publication in Nature in 1973 on the Logic of Animal Conflict. Maynard Smith then more fully elaborated the application of matrix games to evolution with his 1982 volume, Evolution and the Theory of Games. Vincent and Brown trace their contribution to the pioneering developments of Maynard Smith, but in this volume, they go much further. As I reviewed the eleven chapters as they were first written, I felt the privilege of observing, first hand, the construction of a great edifice. In this edifice, the dynamics of ecology is dovetailed with the dynamics of heritable strategies. The tool that accomplishes this is the fitness generating function, known as the G-function. Particularly brilliant is the invention of the virtual strategy, a scalar or vector "place holder" in the G-function. The great virtue of the virtual strategy is that it represents any focal individual taking on any strategy within the entire strategy set of the species. The fitness generating function then determines the fitness for that virtual strategy within the biotic and abiotic environment defined by the set of arguments (e.g., resident strategies, their population sizes, abundance of resources, etc.) defining the G-function. With G-function in hand, Evolutionary Game Theorists now have a mathematical Darwinism - a formal mathematical expression of Darwin's three postulates: a) like begets like; b) organisms struggle for existence; c) heritable traits help determine the outcome of the struggle. With the G-function, we can predict both the dynamics of heritable strategies and the adaptive outcome of natural selection.

Vincent and Brown begin, in Chapter 1, with an historical and philosophical overview of Evolutionary Game Theory and its relationship to the more traditional approach of Evolutionary Genetics. They then proceed to lay the mathematical foundations (Chapters 2 - 7), constructing the theory of Evolutionary Games and the G-function. These chapters each contain useful examples, teaching the student of evolutionary games how to apply the G-function. Noteworthy is that most all of the examples in these chapters represent continuous, as opposed to matrix games. In matrix games, which constitute the bulk of early development of Evolutionary Game Theory, and with which most readers are probably most familiar, strategies are discrete rather than continuous. However, the continuous games elaborated by Vincent and Brown (and now, many others) are of far more useful application in Evolutionary Ecology. Key contributions here are the precise mathematical definition of Maynard Smith's seminal Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS) in Chapter 6, and the formulation of the ESS Maximum Principle in Chapter 7. This principle establishes the well-recognized properties of the ESS of invasion resistance and convergent stability, but also the fit of form and function - the ESS strategy is an adaptation - it maximizes individual fitness given the circumstances.

Chapter 8, which treats species concepts, speciation, and extinction, is particularly enlightening. Here the G-function shines! Under traditional approaches, a huge chasm, conceptual and methodological, separates microevolution and macroevolution. Vincent and Brown, armed with the G-function, unify the two: Microevolution is repeatable and reversible evolutionary dynamics within a G-function. Macroevolution is the production of novel G-functions. They demonstrate the versatility of the G-function approach to Evolutionary Game Theory in their discussion of three contexts for extinction (which is as integral to evolution as is speciation). Vincent and Brown introduce many key concepts in Chapter 8. Perhaps most important is their strategy species concept, which relies on their definition of the species archetype. They provide a particularly cogent definition of a species that is ecologically keystone (its presence promotes the persistence, in ecological time, of other species in the community), but they also point out that a species can by evolutionarily keystone - when its presence increases the numbers of species at an ESS. Using these developments, Vincent and Brown investigate mechanisms of speciation, including sympatric speciation, allopatric speciation, adaptive radiations, coevolution, Wright's shifting balance theory, and incumbent replacement. They conclude with a tour de force: a concise and brilliant discussion of the Procession of Life. As they aptly demonstrate, with the G-function approach to the Game of Life, theories such as Punctuated Equilibrium, oft cited as a contradiction of Darwinian Evolution, instead result naturally from Darwin's three postulates!

Chapter 9 is perhaps the least exciting chapter, but it serves the utilitarian purpose of melding the matrix approach to Evolutionary Game Theory with the G-function approach. This is, indeed, required reading for those who think matrix games are the only game in town.

Chapters 10 and 11 are well worth the wait and development. In these chapters, Vincent and Brown apply the G-function to an impressive diversity of problems arising in the beautiful metaphor of Hutchinson, the Ecological Theater and Evolutionary Play. Though the diversity of topics covered in these two chapters is impressive, as Vincent and Brown state, it represents only a subset of the problems that can be investigated with G-functions. Chapter 10 addresses "basic" issues of Evolutionary Ecology - a who's who of fundamental subjects. These include: Habitat selection and the ideal free distribution; Consumer-resource games, with examples on plant competition and root-shoot ratio; Carcinogenesis (a must read for all interested in Darwinian Medicine); Flowering time for annual plants; Root competition; and Foraging games.

Chapter 11 turns to the G-function as a fundamental tool for Applied Evolutionary Ecology. Here Vincent and Brown examine: Evolutionary responses to harvesting; Resource management and conservation; and Chemotherapy-driven evolution. They contrast management based on ecological enlightenment with that based on evolutionary enlightenment (prescriptions based on each emphasis are not always identical!). They point out the resemblance of control of a cancer with chemotherapy with control of a population through hunting. The analysis is striking, with the main message that if all cancer cells are not destroyed by a chemotherapy session, the survivors will evolve as the first step of what they call chemotherapy-driven evolution. If ever Evolutionary Ecologists were looking for a raison d'être, here they have it!

Life is a game.......2005-08-29

Evolutionary Game Theory, Natural Selection, and Darwinian Dynamics by Thomas L. Vincent and Joel S. Brown is a book that not only belongs among the classics of evolutionary theory, but should have pride of place on the shelf right after Darwin's Origin of Species and Maynard Smith's Evolution and the Theory of Games.

This book makes a novel, interesting and readable contribution to the proper understanding of Darwinian processes in evolution. Based on more than twenty years of collaboration between the authors, the book is a comprehensive review of Darwinian theory newly cast in an over-arching mathematical framework. Unlike Stephen Jay Gould's recent overview of evolutionary theory (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, 2002, 1433 pages), Vincent & Brown's book is concise (382 pages), uncluttered, and supported by an elegant skeleton of mathematical theory.

Don't let the math dissuade you however. If you have read Origin of Species and have a familiarity with classic evolutionary games, you won't have trouble understanding this book. Text and numerous examples provide a clear conceptual explanation of equations throughout.

The book's premise is that life is a game and its players have strategies. Understood as such, the authors present fitness-generating functions (G-functions) that encompass strategy, population, and Darwinian dynamics to model evolutionary outcomes. The first chapter introduces this philosophy; the next six chapters develop the theory, presenting classic population models (Ch. 2) and evolutionary games (Ch. 3), then forging new theory through deriving G-functions (Ch. 4), modeling Darwinian dynamics (Ch. 5), finding the evolutionary stable strategies (ESS, Ch. 6) and developing their general ESS maximum principle (Ch. 7).

The authors are able to side-step population-genetics models (and notably, are able to explain WHY this is possible), and build a general model of Darwinian evolution. An immediate insight of their general model is the concept of flexible landscapes, which re-envisions the notion that natural selection cannot cross valleys on evolutionary landscapes, one of the fundamental criticisms of Darwinian theory since the New Synthesis. Exploration of Vincent & Brown's model illustrates that flexible landscapes can shift under evolving populations so that "valleys" are spanned by continuously uphill routes, re-forming behind evolving populations after they have passed. Further, Vincent & Brown derive the general conditions where flexible landscapes will or will not occur (frequency-dependent vs. -independent evolution respectively).

Armed with their general theory, Vincent & Brown are not content to stop after illuminating the valley conundrum, however, and go on in subsequent chapters to apply their theory to classic problems in evolution (Ch. 8; sympatric and allopatric speciation, co-evolution, the difference between micro- and macro-evolution) and ecology (Ch. 9 & 10; sex ratios, cooperation, ideal free distribution, consumer-resource competition), and even medicine (Ch. 10; the ontogenesis of cancer, chemotherapy) and ecosystem management (Ch. 11, evolutionary stable and ecologically enlightened resource management).

In short, Vincent and Brown have written a marvelous book; and from the day it was published, any evolutionary scholar who has not read it has been behind in the field, and has some catching up to do. It should also be read by ecologists, behaviorists, medical researchers and resource managers interested in evolutionary aspects of their work.

A Mathematical Approach to Evolution.......2005-08-03

Charles Darwin published his primary thesis 'The Origin of Species' in 1859. It was a masterpiece of logical deduction based on the observations he had made while serving as a naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle on a scientific expedition around the world. His views were both orthodox for the day and flawed.

Only seven years later Mendel published the results of his research on genetics. Over time these sciences were merged together into what is now called the 'Modern Synthesis.' Genetics explains the why and the how of species begetting species, and how changes in the species are made when a change is made in the genes.

In 1944, with the advances in mathematics, von Neumann and Morgenstern published 'Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.' Over time the modern synthesis of the genertic approach to evolution has been fit into game theory to help understand how the randomness of genetic evolution can be predicted using game theory.

This book gives a rigorous introduction to the mathematics of game theory as applied to Natural Selection. The book presents the tools necessary for understanding many of Nature's mysteries.

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Nice job!
Antidote Against Fear
It will benefit society as a whole if you read this book
What about the environment?
The End of History ?

Nonzero
Robert Wright
Manufacturer: Abacus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0349113343

Amazon.com

Nonzero, from New Republic writer Robert Wright, is a difficult and important book--well worth reading--addressing the controversial question of purpose in evolution. Using language suggesting that natural selection is a designer's tool, Wright inevitably draws the conclusion that evolution is goal-oriented (or at least moves toward inevitable ends independently of environmental or contingent variables).

The underlying reason that non-zero-sum games wind up being played well is the same in biological evolution as in cultural evolution. Whether you are a bunch of genes or a bunch of memes, if you're all in the same boat you'll tend to perish unless you are conducive to productive coordination.... Genetic evolution thus tends to create smoothly integrated organisms, and cultural evolution tends to create smoothly integrated groups of organisms.

Admittedly, it's as hard to think clearly about natural selection as it is to think about God, but that makes it just as important to acknowledge our biases and try to exclude them from our conclusions. It is this that makes Nonzero potentially unsatisfying to the scientifically literate. Time after time we've seen thinkers try to find in biological evolution a "drive toward complexity" that might explain all sorts of other phenomena from economics to spirituality. Some authors, like Teilhard de Chardin, have much to offer the careful reader who takes pains to read metaphorically. Others--legions of cranks--provide nothing but opaque diatribes culminating in often-bizarre assertions proven to nobody but the author. Wright is much closer to de Chardin along this axis; his anthropological scholarship is particularly noteworthy, and his grasp of world history is excellent. Unfortunately, he has the advocate's willingness to blind himself to disagreeable facts and to muddle over concepts whose clarity would be poisonous to his positions: try to pin him down on what he means by complexity, for example. Still, his thesis that human cultures are historically striving for cooperative, nonzero-sum situations is heartening and compelling; even though it's not supported by biology, it's not knocked down, either. If the reader can work around the undefined assumptions, Wright's charm and obvious interest in planetary survival make Nonzero a worthy read. If the first chapter's title--"The Ladder of Cultural Evolution"--makes you cringe, the last one--"You Call This a God?"--will make you smile. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

At the beginning of Nonzero, Robert Wright sets out to "define the arrow of the history of life, from the primordial soup to the World Wide Web." Twenty-two chapters later, after a sweeping and vivid narrative of the human past, he has succeeded — and has mounted a powerful challenge to the conventional view that evolution and human history are aimless.

Ingeniously employing game theory — the logic of "zero-sum" and "non-zero-sum" games — Wright isolates the impetus behind life's basic direction: the impetus that, via biological evolution, created complex, intelligent animals and then, via cultural evolution, pushed the human species toward deeper and vaster social complexity. In this view, the coming of today's interdependent global society was "in the cards" — not quite inevitable, perhaps, but, as Wright puts it, "so probable as to inspire wonder." So probable, indeed, as to invite speculation about higher purpose, especially in light of "the phase of history that seems to lie immediately ahead: a social, political, and even moral culmination of sorts."

In a work of vast erudition and pungent wit, Wright takes on some of the past century's most prominent thinkers, including Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins. He finds evidence for his position in unexpected corners, from native American hunter-gatherer societies and Polynesian chiefdoms to medieval Islamic commerce and precocious Chinese technology; from conflicts of interest among a cell's genes to discord at the World Trade Organization.

Wright argues that a coolly scientific appraisal of humanity's three-billion-year past can give new spiritual meaning to the present and even offer political guidance for the future. Nonzero will change the way people think about the human prospect.

Customer Reviews:

Nice job!.......2007-09-09

The book could have been better organized, the tone was somewhat grating, and some of the ideas fell flat, but I still rate this 5/5 stars, because in one book the author makes a convincing case that cultural evolution is inexorable and that with enough time it is inevitible that evolution would produce a species capable of culture. Way to go!

Antidote Against Fear.......2007-08-04

This book deserves more exposure to create momentum towards more positive interaction among different religions, societies, cultures and nation states.

It's a good antidote against the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) used to isolate, stigmatise and demonise.

Robert Wright is also contradiction in terms, since his demeanor is quite negative while he talks of positive change being manifest in history. In his own words, "grim inspiration" is what he offers...you can download the video of his TED talk.

He's also probably one of the few proponents for evolution who actually dare to make some argument for the existence of a higher being.

Most evolutionists are just as fundamentalist in their denial of a higher being (in the context of a "beginning" and the free will of intelligent beings), as many Christians are horrified at discussing evolution (in the context of biology). Both sides seem to have a compelling need to believe, their reasons or their faith, to the total exclusion of the other.

It will benefit society as a whole if you read this book.......2007-03-20

This is an excellent book. Basically the premise is that natural selection tends to favor non-zero sum activity on both a biological and cultural level. Wright is not only a visionary thinker but also a great writer and teacher. This stuff could be very hard to grasp, but he does a great job of making the subject easily accessible to anyone with a decent understanding of natural selection.

Specialists and scientists can assuredly point to specific examples that contradict Wright's theory, but as a whole it seems like a pretty solid theory with alot of supporting evidence throughout history. Things are never black and white, so nonzero-sumness may not be the end-all-be-all explanation for the arrow of history, but it sure seems like a pretty large piece of the puzzle. The great thing about it, like natural selection, is that it just makes a whole lot of sense. Understanding the inter-related nature of the world might be the real key to our progress/survival as a species, and Nonzero is as good a place as any to start.

On a side note: to truly maximize the enjoyment of this book, go to Wright's website Bloggingheads.tv and watch one of his dialogues. He has a very dry personality that can be incredibly witty at times. I could hear his voice while reading this book and it made his quirky little jokes infinitely more amusing.

PS it's nice to know that some Presidents actually used to take an interest in books like this.

What about the environment?.......2007-01-04

Mr. Wright knows how to write, of course. His witty and off-handy way of explaining things and of finding connections hidden to most other mortal beings is almost unparalleled (if that were the only aspect to rate, it would be a 5). However, I found most disturbing the fact that he seems to dismiss or not address (on purpose?) the effect his (quite well argued) linear o destined history has had on the environment. He tells a lot of stories on how humankind has evolved from hunter/gatherers towards capitalism and not once (or perhaps only once) says he something about the dire consequences this has had oh-so-many-times on natural resources, biodiversity, cultural diversity, etc. Perhaps we are doomed (blessed?) to become all capitalists, but we should not succumb to a Greek-tragedy type of historicism. Mr. Wright: how much are we able, according to your hypotheses, to control our fate? If we are going to be capitalists, let us hope we will be able to develop at least a type of capitalism, that, contrary to your book, will have in mind that this is the only planet we have (sorry for the cliché, but its true!) and that the trend we are following will destroy it utterly sooner than later, no matter what.

The End of History ?.......2007-01-04

At one level, this seems like an unfashionable foray into old, well-worn territory: History has a direction and, yes, something like a purpose; the nation-state will crumble in favour of supra-national government; the material superstructure of society changes the way we think and interact. Marx might well be turning in his grave. But to buttress his seemingly unscientific propositions, Wright marshalls an impressive array of very scientific arguments and evidence. The whole approach taken by the author is - at least to a non-expert layperson like me - quite startling: He sees cultural evolution - which include material advancement and information technology - as a LOGICAL AND NECESSARY OUTGROWTH OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION ! And the dynamic by which this is achieved? The logic of non-zero summness, ie, interactions resulting in equal gain; the growing complexity of a globalised world is tending towards positive gains for all. Is this, then, the End of History ?

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