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SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed Hardcover – March 22, 2011

by Martin Nowak (Author), Roger Highfield (Author)

47 customer reviews

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EVOLUTION IS OFTEN PRESENTED AS A STRICTLY COMPETITIVE ENDEAVOR. This point of view has had serious implications for the way we see the mechanics of both science and culture. But scientists have long wondered how societies could have evolved without some measure of cooperation. And if there was cooperation involved, how could it have arisen from nature red in tooth and claw?

Martin Nowak, one of the worlds experts on evolution and game theory, working here with bestselling science writer Roger Highfield, turns an important aspect of evolutionary theory on its head to explain why cooperation, not competition, has always been the key to the evolution of complexity. He offers a new explanation for the origin of life and a new theory for the origins of language, biologys second greatest information revolution after the emergence of genes. SuperCooperators also brings to light his game-changing work on disease. Cancer is fundamentally a failure of the bodys cells to cooperate, Nowak has discovered, but organs are cleverly designed to foster cooperation, and he explains how this new understanding can be used in novel cancer treatments.

Nowak and Highfield examine the phenomena of reciprocity, reputation, and reward, explaining how selfless behavior arises naturally from competition; how forgiveness, generosity, and kindness have a mathematical rationale; how companies can be better designed to promote cooperation; and how there is remarkable overlap between the recipe for cooperation that arises from quantitative analysis and the codes of conduct seen in major religions, such as the Golden Rule.

In his first book written for a wide audience, this hugely influential scientist explains his cutting-edge research into the mysteries of cooperation, from the rise of multicellular life to Good Samaritans. With wit and clarity, Nowak and Highfield make the case that cooperation, not competition, is the defining human trait. SuperCooperators will expand our understanding of evolution and provoke debate for years to come.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

MARTIN A. NOWAK is Professor of Biology and Mathematics at Harvard University. He is Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. In 1998 he moved to Princeton to establish the first center in Theoretical Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study. Nowak has won many prizes and has revolutionized the mathematical approach to biology. Nowak has made important contributions to the understanding of virus infections and cancer. He has pioneered the mathematical theory for the evolution of human language and altruistic behavior.Supercooperators will be Nowak's first book for a general audience.

ROGER HIGHFIELD, Ph.D. (Co-Writer) is the Editor of New Scientist magazine, which is now the world’s biggest selling weekly science and technology magazine. He has written/coauthored six popular science books, two of which have been bestsellers, including After Dolly, The Science of Harry Potter, The Physics of Christmas, The Private Lives of Albert Einstein, and Frontiers of Complexity. His most recent work was as the outside editor on genomic researcher J. Craig Venter's autobiography, A Life Decoded, published in November, 2007 (Viking, US; Allen Lane, UK) .

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Free Press (March 22, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1439100187
ISBN-13: 978-1439100189
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 47 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,373,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7122 in History & Philosophy of Science
- #340 in Game Theory (Books)
- #42690 in Philosophy (Books)

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pizzalizard

Definitely Worth Reading

June 26, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I enjoyed reading the book and its many ideas regarding the evolution of cooperation. I'm a bit of a Rip Van Winkle. Nearly four decades ago I had courses that assigned George Williams book, Adaptation and Natural Selection, and William D. Hamilton's classic articles. I thought that issues were pretty well settled. I recall reading J.D. Wilson's book on group selection. Intuition (not always reliable) tells me yes, it can happen, but do you really expect to find clear examples of it out there in nature? There's a political scientist, Peter Corning, who has written his entire career about what he calls the "synergy" hypothesis; I think it's a better word since it doesn't carry a lot of baggage that the word cooperation does. Those who read Nowak should also read Corning's books. Political scientists deal with power--the capacity to get others to do things that they would not otherwise do. It's sources are four: authority, coercion, persuasion, and inducements. The "games" that should be of most interest to political scientists are asymmetric. I'd like to see more research of the kind that Nowak and his team have done on asymmetric games. Policy analysts are only now starting to apply evolutionary principles to the design of public policy in ways that support, as Pinker called it, the "better angels of our nature." The book is definitely worth reading. Are the arguments right? Readers will have to sift through the evidence and decide on their own.

3 people found this helpful

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Donald C. Maldari, S.J.

Insightful and challenging

March 29, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Martin Nowak demonstrates in a variety of ways the patterns of cooperative behavior in nature in general and Homo sapiens in particular. The data reveal that groups of individuals who cooperate with each other are more successful in survival and thus in natural selection than groups consisting of competitors. Humans have evolved in such a way as to foster our ability to cooperate, which is one of the reasons that we are so successful as a species. My communicating my opinion of his work to other potential readers is an example of this cooperative instinct and our ability to cooperate very effectively through language. On the other hand groups always have cheaters who try to profit from the group effort without contributing to it. Cooperation in groups changes in cycles: it increases to the point that cheaters can do so with relative ease but others find out about it. Language is a major tool for rooting out cheaters. After a while the cooperative behavior in the group disintegrates and the group has to start all over again. Nowak ends the book with an enigmatic chapter that suggests that humanity can transcend this vicious cycle through the victory of altruistic love.

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Pedro Demo

flexible mathematics...

April 23, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Very clever book from a modern mathematician (sometimes too self-convinced), who studies complex evolutionary dynamics through formal modeling, with considerable results. He surprises for practical outcomes coming from such intricate abstractions, what makes Nowak a leader in the field of human cooperation. He innovates quite a bit in understanding natural selection, against the mainstream of “Darwinism” based on selfish genes and others suppositions guided by raw individual competition. Bright, creative mind (he comes form Austria, Vienna), he carries the spirit of math geniuses from Europa, where math combines very well with good academic formation, fine culture and epistemological good sense. I learned a lot from him.

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Chris Sandoval

Fatherly Advice for Amazon Reviewerrs

August 14, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The only reason I gave this book three stars is that as a non-expert I am in no position to evaluate the arguments of Nowak and his scientific critcs. However, I have some fatherly advice for his reviewers on Amazon.

1) Some reviewers have criticized the autobiographical fluff in this book--Nowak's strolls through the Wienerwald in Austria with his beloved mentor and all that. Now I agree that I likewise prefer to cut through all the autobiographical fluff to get to the scientific meat. However, the fluff by Nowak and his ghostwriter Highfield is quite forgivable because their publisher probably would not have it any other way. In their book Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction and Get It Published by Susan Rabiner (2003-09-17), Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato bluntly stated that the proper way to write a popular book on a scientific or technical topic is for the author to tell an autobiographical story of how she came by the scientific meat piece by piece in the first place. The autobiographical material determines the outline of the book, the technical stuff has to be shoehorned into that procrustean outline--and any technical material that does not fit into the autobiographical outline ends up on the cutting-room floor. Rabiner and Fortunato sternly warn aspiring authors that publishers won't even touch a popular book on technical topics written any other way because it won't sell. Their advice to people who have a message to get out to the world but are impatient with the human interest stuff is that they had better just resign themselves to putting their material on their personal website. As for me, I agree with Nowak's Amazon critics that the human interest stuff gets in the way of the good stuff--but I can easily forgive and empathize with Nowak and Highfield.

2) This second point is the mirror image of the previous one. I have read the reviews of critics who complain that _SuperCooperators_ makes claims without proper mathematical support. Their error lies in forgetting that popular science books ought to be treated by a more lenient standard than technical ones. If you want all of Nowak's technical material, you should read his book Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life or his journal article in _Nature_ along with Corina Tarnita and E. O. Wilson. In his popular science book A Brief History of Time, Professor Steven Hawking confided that his publisher advised him that every mathematical equation would cut the sales of his book in half. He proceeded to give us just one equation, E = mc2, and he begged his readers' indulgence. I'm sure Nowak and Highfield were told the same by their publisher, and their publisher would not have it any other way.

3) And now some fatherly advice to a wider range of Nowak's critics, his scientific critics all over cyberspace. On the one hand, I admit that scientists and scholars need to have a thick skin because their peers will rightly challenge their work to death. Scientists scrutinize one another's work to death, and this purging process prunes away the rubbish while preserving the good stuff. Science could not advance any other way without this pruning process. However, scientists can disagree without being as disagreeable as so many of them are. Scientists like Gould, Lewontin, Coyne, and Myers have often been harsher than they have to be to make their point--and Nowak's scientific critics have been no less uncharitable. I don't expect Nowak's critics to pull their punches on technical issues: by all means, punch away! Even so, let us temper justice with mercy and criticism with professionalism!

Dr. Martin A. Nowak, I have no idea whether your ideas are sense or nonsense. Only time will tell. But at least I try to be fair, and I hope your critics will do the same.

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Amazon Customer

An excellent book, spoiled by padding it with lots of unnecessary information

July 24, 2012

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is an excellent book,using Game Theory to argue how cooperation helped in the evolutionary process. I would have enjoyed it much better if not for the many unnecessary tales of how he met so-and-so, and the many anecdotal tales of the various scientists. Just stick to the science, and I would have given it a 5 stars.

I like particularly the last chapter where he summarized the whole book.

Well worth a read.

3 people found this helpful

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