Evolution of cooperation (Evolutionary Biology)

The analysis of equilibrium points in biological dynamical systems has been of great interest in a variety of mathematical approaches to biology, such as population genetics, theoretical ecology or evolutionary game theory. The maximal number of equilibria and their classification based on stability have been the primary subjects of these studies, for example in the context of two-player games with multiple strategies. Herein, we address a different question using evolutionary game theory as a tool. If the payoff matrices are drawn randomly from an arbitrary distribution, what are the probabilities of observing a certain number of (stable) equilibria? We extend the domain of previous results for the two-player framework, which corresponds to a single diploid locus in population genetics, by addressing the full complexity of multi-player games with multiple strategies. In closing, we discuss an application and illustrate how previous results on the number of equilibria, such as the famous Feldman–Karlin conjecture on the maximal number of isolated fixed points in a viability selection model, can be obtained as special cases of our results based on multi-player evolutionary games. We also show how the probability of realizing a certain number of equilibria changes as we increase the number of players and number of strategies.

Both conventional wisdom and empirical evidence suggest that arranging a prior commitment or agreement before an interaction takes place enhances the chance of reaching mutual cooperation. Yet it is not clear what mechanisms might underlie the participation in and compliance with such a commitment, especially when participation is costly and non-compliance can be profitable. Here, we develop a theory of participation and compliance with respect to an explicit commitment formation process and to institutional incentives where individuals, at first, decide whether or not to join a cooperative agreement to play a one-shot social dilemma game. Using a mathematical model, we determine whether and when participating in a costly commitment, and complying with it, is an evolutionary stable strategy, resulting in high levels of cooperation. We show that, given a sufficient budget for providing incentives, rewarding of commitment compliant behaviours better promotes cooperation than punishment of non-compliant ones. Moreover, by sparing part of this budget for rewarding those willing to participate in a commitment, the overall level of cooperation can be significantly enhanced for both reward and punishment. Finally, the presence of mistakes in deciding to participate favours evolutionary stability of commitment compliance and cooperation.

Indirect reciprocity is an important mechanism for promoting cooperation among self-interested agents. Simplified, it means you help me, therefore somebody else will help you (in contrast to direct reciprocity: you help me, therefore I will help you). Indirect reciprocity can be achieved via reputation and norms. Strategies, such as the so-called leading eight, relying on these principles can maintain high levels of cooperation and remain stable against invasion, even in the presence of errors. However, this is only the case if the reputation of an agent is modeled as a shared public opinion. If agents have private opinions and hence can disagree if somebody is good or bad, even rare errors can cause cooperation to break apart. We show that most strategies can overcome the private assessment problem by applying pleasing. A pleasing agent acts in accordance with others' expectations of their behavior (i.e. pleasing them) instead of being guided by their own, private assessment. As such, a pleasing agent can achieve better reputations than previously considered strategies when there is disagreement in the population. Pleasing is effective even if only the opinions of few other individuals are considered and when it bears additional costs. Finally, through a more exhaustive analysis of the parameters' space than previous studies, we show that some of the leading eight still function under private assessment, i.e. that cooperation rates are well above an objective baseline. Yet, pleasing strategies supersede formerly described ones and enhance cooperation.

What is morality? What explains its content and structure? And how is it best measured? The theory of morality-as-cooperation (MAC) argues that morality consists of a collection of biological and cultural solutions to the problems of cooperation and conflict recurrent in human social life. MAC uses evolutionary biology and nonzerosum game theory to identify seven distinct types of cooperation – helping family, helping group, reciprocating, hawkish displays of dominance, dove-ish displays of submission, dividing disputed resources, and respecting property. And MAC predicts that each type of cooperation will be considered relevant to morality, be judged morally good, and will constitute a distinct moral domain. The present study tests MAC’s predictions by developing a new self-report measure of moral values, examining its psychometric properties on a sample of UK adults (Study 1: N=1,392), and comparing them to the properties of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ; Study 2: N=1,042). The results provide strong support for MAC’s predictions; the MAC questionnaire outperforms the MFQ on every criterion. Our results suggest that morality-as-cooperation has the potential to provide the rigorous and systematic theoretical footing that the study of morality has hitherto lacked.

This study tested the hypothesis that human behavioral responses to psycho-social stress are sexually dimorphic and conform to the 'flight-or-fight' response for males and 'tend-and-befriend' for females. One hundred and twenty young adults (60 male, 60 female), mostly college students, served as study participants. Participants were randomly assigned to either a stress condition (Trier Social Stress Test, a standardized laboratory procedure used to induce psychosocial stress) or a control condition. Stress induction was confirmed with self-report questionnaires about perceived stress and anxiety. Participants then underwent three social decision making tasks to assess their competitive and cooperative tendencies: an Ultimatum Game, a Prisoner's Dilemma, and a Prosocial Risk Taking task. We found evidence for interactive effects of stress and sex in all three tests, and all interactions were in the same direction. Relative to controls, stressed males made lower monetary offers to their partners and tended to be less willing to behave prosocially in a hypothetical risky situation, whereas stressed females offered higher monetary amounts in the Ultimatum Game and behaved more cooperatively in the Prisoner's Dilemma. These results suggest that stress renders males more selfish and competitive, while stressed females become more other-oriented, more generous, and more cooperative. These effects are consistent with the 'flight or fight' pattern for males and the 'tend and befriend' pattern for females, respectively. The role of risk taking and empathy as possible psychological mediators of the effects of acute psychosocial stress on social decision making in men and women needs to be further investigated, along with sex differences in physiological responsiveness to stress.

Suppose a stranger throws himself in front of a car to save the life of a child about to be run over or a dying wealthy man decides to give all his wealth to charity at no gains to himself. What motivates that stranger to act, causing absolute harm to himself and death with no reward received in return? What motivates the dying man who has nothing to gain from charity decide to give away his fortunes to complete strangers? One answer is pure altruism, the selfless concern for others’ wellbeing at the cost of one’s own wellbeing, time, or energy. This would be a satisfactory answer that seems to have been accepted society, that selflessness can truly exist. However, there are serious concerns about the selfless aspect of altruism with some scholars, such as evolutionary psychologists and proponents of the social exchange theory, claiming that it is not merely unlikely for it to exist, but that it is outright impossible, while others counter these claims be it through innate, biologically, or religious conviction of divinely acquired selflessness or Batson’s infamous empathy-altruism hypothesis. Regardless of which route one takes, the means to the end do not require proper identification to notice that humans do participate in behavior that penalizes them and benefits others, but the question is can and do they do so independently of self-interest?

BACKGROUND:
In spite of its indusrial usefulness and varied daily uses, lead (Pb) pollution is a widespread ecological problem that faces the humans in the 21th century. Pb was found to produces a wide range of toxic effects including neurotoxicity especially to the developing and young offspring. Recently, the utilization of herbal plants has received a significant attention where there has been rising awareness in their therapeutic use; among these is the garlic.
AIM OF THE WORK:
In light of the above, the current study is designed experimentally in female pregnant rats in order to investigate the beneficial role of garlic extract in the protection from the maternal and fetal cerebellar damage that produced by administration of different doses of Pb during pregnancy.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
Positively pregnant female rats were divided into five groups; one control group, two Pb-treated groups (exposed to 160 and 320 mg/kg b.wt. of Pb, respectively) and two groups treated with both Pb and garlic (exposed to Pb as previous groups together with 250 mg/ kg b.wt. /day of garlic extract). Treatments started from day 1 till day 20 of pregnancy, where the mother rats of different experimental groups were sacrified to obtain the fetuses. Pb level in the maternal nd fetal blood and cerebellum was estimated by spectrophotometry. Specimens of the cerebellum of different mother and fetal groups were processed to histological and immunohistochemical staining for microscopic examination.
RESULTS:
The results showed that administration of Pb to pregnant rats resulted in a dose-dependent toxicity for both mothers and fetuses in the form of decrease of maternal weight gain, placental and fetal weights, brain weight and diminished fetal growth parameters, which were prominent in rat's group treated with larger dose of Pb. In Pb-treated rats, Pb level in blood and cerebellum was high when compared to the control. The histopathological examination of the cerebellum of treated dams and fetuses showed marked alterations mainly in the form of Purkinje cell degeneration and lack of deveopmet of fetal cerebellum. Co-treatment of garlic extract along with Pb resulted in a significant decrease in Pb levels as compared with those treated with Pb alone with improvement of the histopathological changes.
CONCLUSIONS:
This study was useful in evaluating the hazardous effects of uncontrolled use of Pb in general and in assessing the developmental and neurotoxicity of fetuses due to exposure during pregnancy in particular. Co-administration of garlic has beneficial effects in amelioration of Pb-induced neurotoxicity and reversing the histopathological changes of the cerebellum of mother rats and fetuses.
KEYWORDS:
garlic; glial fibrillary acidic protein; lead; purkinje cells

Abstract In this article we define professional collaboration, note why it is desirable for teachers, describe some barriers to collaboration, some advantages, and some possibilities especially in our own school environment. We look briefly as some Japanese contexts and more closely at the English Language Institute's (ELI) positioning at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS). We also report on a pilot survey that may help teachers see how collaborative they are and get them thinking about being more collaborative.

A mechanism of evolution that ensures adaptive changes without the obligatory role of natural selection is described. According to this mechanism, the first event is a plastic adaptive change (change of phenotype), followed by stochastic genetic change which makes the transformation irreversible. This mechanism is similar to the organic selection mechanism as proposed by Baldwin, Lloyd Morgan and Osborn in the 1890s and later developed by Waddington, but considerably updated according to contemporary knowledge to demonstrate its independence from natural selection. Conversely, in the neo-Darwinian mechanism, the first event is random genetic change, followed by a new phenotype and natural selection or differential reproduction of genotypes. Due to the role of semiosis in the decisive first step of the mechanism described here (the ontogenic adaptation, or rearrangement of gene expression patterns and profile), it could be called a semiotic mechanism of evolution.

This infographic distills down the central argument of Hobbes' Leviathan to a single page, in the process illuminating its logic.  This curious logic--part game theory, part derivation, and part evolutionary narrative--is fascinating at many levels.

I propose an objective definition of money through a biological definition of cooperation, as opposed to altruism. I argue that these types of sociality are confused because they are not evaluated from a situated perspective of animal interactions. The theory of reciprocal altruism does not correctly model the human exchange of goods and services. These constructive economic interactions require the ability to choose partners based on individual preferences. On the other hand, altruism presupposes partnership under a common standard of value. Therefore, the nature and evolution of money cannot be explained by conceptualising it as a token of altruism or as a form of credit. Rather, money is a transferable signal that enables cooperative interactions between distant or unrelated individuals. This behavioural definition similarly proposes an understanding of morality and human society as strategies of indirect reciprocity in the context of game theory.

This article reports a meta-analysis of 82 studies assessing the relationship between social value orientation (SVO) and cooperation in social dilemmas. A significant and small to medium effect size was found (r = .30). Results supported a hypothesis that the effect size was larger when participants were not paid (r = .39) than when they were paid (r = .23). The effect size was also larger in give-some (r = .29) as opposed to take-some (r = .22) games. However, contrary to expectations, the effect was not larger in one-shot, as opposed to iterated games. Findings are discussed in the context of theory on SVO and directions for future research are outlined.

Male reproductive cooperation is rare in nature: expectations from evolutionary theory suggest that males should be competitors for reproductive opportunities and provide little parental care. Counter to this expectation, in cooperatively polyandrous mating systems, multiple adult males mate with a single breeding female and subsequently cooperate to rear her young. This raises the question of the fitness benefits of parental care, as males may be providing care to offspring that are not their own. Here, I use genetic and demographic data from a multiyear field study of Geoffroy’s tamarin, Saguinus geoffroyi, to test predictions of the indirect and direct fitness benefits hypotheses. I found that polyandrous males within a group were related at levels consistent with filial or fraternal relationships (r = 0.36–0.44) and could also share paternity (40% of groups had >2 male sires). Sharing of paternity occurred both within litters and over multiyear associations that remained stable throughout the study period of 2–3 years. However, remaining groups had a single sire, perhaps owing to the ability of males to prevail in sperm competition. These results suggest the joint role of indirect and direct fitness benefits in male–male cooperation in tamarins, in contrast to other cooperatively polyandrous species. The high average relatedness of polyandrous males may be consistent with fraternal cooperative polyandry in this species, as observed in certain human societies, providing a novel example that should enhance comparative studies of the evolution of male–male cooperation in reproduction.

How effective are rewards (for cooperation) and punishment (for noncooperation) as tools to promote cooperation in social dilemmas, or situations when immediate self-interest and longer-term collective interest conflict? And what variables can promote the impact of these incentives? Although such questions have been examined, social and behavioral scientists provide different answers. To date, there is no theoretical and/or quantitative review of rewards and punishments as incentives of cooperation in social dilemmas. Using a novel interdependence-theoretic framework, we propose that rewards and punishment should both promote cooperation, and identify two variables – cost of incentives and source of incentives – that are predicted to magnify the effectiveness of these incentives in promoting cooperation. A meta-analysis involving 187 effect sizes, revealed that rewards and punishments exhibit a statistically equivalent positive effect on cooperation (d = .51 and .70, respectively). The effectiveness of incentives was stronger when the incentives were costly, compared to free, to administer. Centralization of incentives did not moderate the effect size. Punishments were also more effective during iterated dilemmas when participants continued to interact in the same group, compared to both iterated dilemmas with re-assignment to a new group after each trial and one-shot dilemmas. We also examine several other potential moderators of the effect size, such as iterations, partner matching, group size, country, and participant payment. We discuss broad conclusions, implications for theory, and suggest directions for future research on rewards and punishment in social dilemmas.

Amongst the most researched solutions to social dilemmas is communication. Since the late 1950’s, it has been well known that communication enhances cooperation in social dilemmas. This paper reports a meta-analysis of this literature (45 effect sizes) and finds a large positive effect of communication on cooperation in social dilemmas (d = 1.01). This effect is moderated by the type of communication, with a stronger effect of face-to-face discussion (d = 1.21) compared to written messages (d = .46). The communication-cooperation relationship is also stronger in larger, compared to smaller, group social dilemmas. Whether communication occurred before or during iterated dilemmas did not statistically affect the communication-cooperation effect size. Results are discussed according to theory and research on communication in social dilemmas.

The goal of this thesis is twofold. First, intention recognition is studied from an Artificial Intelligence (AI) modeling perspective. We present a novel and efficient intention recognition method that possesses several important features: (i) The method is context-dependent and incremental, enabled by incrementally construct- ing a three-layer Bayesian Network model as more actions are observed, and in a context-dependent manner, relying on a logic programming knowledge base concern- ing the context; (ii) The Bayesian Network is composed from a knowledge base of readily specified and readily maintained Bayesian Network fragments with simple structures, enabling an efficient acquisition of the corresponding knowledge base (ei- ther from domain experts or else automatically from a plan corpus); and, (iii) The method addresses the issue of intention change and abandonment, and can appro- priately resolve the issue of multiple intentions recognition. Several aspects of the method are evaluated experimentally, achieving some definite success. Furthermore, on top of the intention recognition method, a novel framework for intention-based decision making is provided, illustrating several ways in which an ability to recognize intentions of others can enhance a decision making process.
A second subgoal of the thesis concerns that, whereas intention recognition has been extensively studied in small scale interactive settings, there is a major shortage of modeling research with respect to large scale social contexts, namely evolution- ary roles and aspects of intention recognition. Employing our intention recognition method and the tools of evolutionary game theory, this thesis explicitly addresses the roles played by intention recognition in the final outcome of cooperation in large populations of self-regarding individuals. By equipping individuals with the capacity for assessing intentions of others in the course of social dilemmas, we show how in- tention recognition is selected by natural selection, opening a window of opportunity for cooperation to thrive, even in hard cooperation prone games like the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
In addition, there are cases where it is difficult, if not impossible, to recognize the intentions of another agent. In such cases, the strategy of proposing commitment, or of intention manifestation, can help to impose or clarify the intentions of others. Again using the tools of evolutionary game theory, we show that a simple form of commitment can lead to the emergence of cooperation; furthermore, the combination of commitment with intention recognition leads to a strategy better than either one by itself.

Reflecting on the recent book by Marina L. Butovskaya and Victoria V. Rostovtseva, the author discusses altruism and selfishness as preconditions for cooperation of humans in society for collective actions, as a result of which its sociocultural transformations take place. It is argued that the problem of sources of cooperative behavior is by no means the one of strict choice between altruism and selfishness. Cooperation in society is based on a combination of altruism and selfishness in human behavior, with reciprocity of relationships as a connecting link between them. Butovskaya and Rostovtseva’s approach to the problem of the sources of cooperation as the background of social evolution is compared with the theories for which this problem is crucially important, too but solved differently – the collective action theory and collective acceptance theory of institutions.

While the productive role of social interaction between peers in promoting cognitive
development has been clearly established, the communicative processes through which this is achieved is less clearly understood. Earlier work has established that different types of conversation become established between children as they work together on a problem, and that these types have different implications for the progress of a nonconserver. The paper focuses on the forms of recognition that emerge within these different conversation types. It reports further analyses of a study in which 226 6.5- to 7.5-year-old children were presented with a Piagetian task of conservation of liquid. Conservers and non-conservers were asked to discuss in pairs their conflicting answers and agree upon a joint response. Cognitive progress was assessed by pre- to post-test gains. Analyses of the conversational moves made by each of the participants to the conversation indicates that both non-conservers and conservers not only make characteristic contributions, but that these contributions vary across the conversation types, and hence also relate differentially to the non-conserver’s progress. More detailed qualitative analyses of the different conversation types provide insights into the ways in which different forms of recognition emerge through these interactions. These results are discussed in relation to a socio-cognitive account of development.

What is morality, where does it come from, and how does it work? Scholars have struggled with these questions for millennia. But we now have a scientific answer. The theory of ‘morality-as-cooperation’ uses the mathematics of cooperation – the theory of nonzerosum games – to identify the many distinct problems of cooperation and their solutions; and it predicts that it is the solutions employed by humans that constitute ‘morality’. Thus, morality turns out to be a collection of biological and cultural solutions to the problems of cooperation and conflict recurrent in human social life. This theory generates a comprehensive taxonomy of moral values – a Periodic Table of Ethics – that includes obligations to family, group loyalty, reciprocity, bravery, respect, fairness, and property rights. And because morality-as-cooperation makes principled predictions about the structure and content of human morality, which can be tested against those of rival theories, it reveals that the study of morality is simply another branch of science.

This is a book dedicated to the neglected topic of human evolution - the defense system of our distant ancestors. The central argument is that the evolutionary competition between the human ancestors and the ancestors of the big cats in Africa was the crucial factor behind the evolution of our morphology, behavior, religions, and culture.

An essay review of Richard Wrangham's "The Goodness Paradox". I summarize and then evaluate the book’s overall argument. I pay special attention to Wrangham's ideas about connections between human self-domestication and the evolution of language and cooperation.

In ancestral human environments, muscularity and height (in males) and physical attractiveness (in both sexes) would theoretically have correlated positively with one’s social status, and thus with one’s ability to benefit from social inequality. We therefore hypothesized that individuals who are more characterized by these traits would be less egalitarian (i.e., less likely to believe that resources should be distributed equally in social groups). We used a white-light 3D body scanner to extract anthropometric measurements from 118 participants, and our four egalitarianism measures included social dominance orientation and social value orientation. We found that as hypothesized, muscularity and waist–chest ratio in males, and self-perceived attractiveness in both sexes, tended to associate significantly in the predicted directions with the four egalitarianism measures; most of these correlations were of medium size. Neither height, nor two anthropometrically-assessed attractiveness measures (volume height index and waist–hip ratio), associated significantly with any egalitarianism measure in either sex. Egalitarianism has crucial social repercussions (e.g., taxes, welfare and civil rights), and results from the current study shed light on its origins.

We believe cultural group selection is an elegant theoretical framework to study the evolution of complex human behaviours, including large-scale cooperation. However, the empirical evidence on key theoretical issues – such as levels of within- and between-group variation and effects of intergroup competition – is so far patchy, with no clear case where all the relevant assumptions and predictions of cultural group selection are met, to the exclusion of other explanations.

A brief overview of the negative aliens' history contaminating the consciousness fields of the Nebadon (our) Universe, together with a short list of atrocities that they have committed while invading the territory of Nebadon through creating unauthorized tears in the fabrics of space-times, joining them together to form wormholes, and in turn, linking these wormholes to form a black hole system, is presented. It is explicated that these negative aliens have created an incredible amount of energetic wastes or 'miasma' in the consciousness field of Earth through utilization of their AI machinery that progressively has led to the generation of' black goo' and its adherence to human DNA, culminating in a variety forms of genetic mutations and alien hybridization. Being of parallel-antiparallel dimensions to our Earth and being energetic or stealth to our physical plane, their negative agendas have been particularly carried out by a horde of narcissistic, self-serving hybrid human individuals who are firmly set on attaining fame and fortune for themselves at the expense of others, with utter apathy and ruthlessness, who consider everyone else as inferior to their 'elitist' linage and pyramidal hierarchical societal structure, even viewing other humans as nothing more than 'farm animals,' to be put in, essentially, forced labor, and being utilized as slaves and such, at the same time being totally mind controlled, mind slided, and blank slated as to not be aware of what is transpiring in their Phantom Reality, that to a significant degree, is actually governed by the negative aliens AI machinery. Finally, it is explicated as to what will happen to these nefarious individuals during the beginning of this current Ascension Cycle with reference to their new course of existence.

Contrary to the misinformation-disinformation or paltering, lies, and deception found on the internet surfacing under the general discipline of “New Age Spirituality” nowadays, the negative aliens do NOT only ‘live’ in the Astral Plane, nor are confined to the lowest 4 dimensions. In fact, they originate from the Wesa System comprised of the parallel (mostly Annunaki) as well as the antiparallel (mostly reptilians) dimensions going up to the 10D. Indeed, this is what is meant by the Sephiroth or the 10D False Tree of Life that forms the Metatronic Consciousness Reversal System, which is the impaled form of the 12D Grid or Universal Tree of Life.  This means that upon their rank and hierarchy within their pyramidal societal structure, they can exist anywhere typically up to the 10th dimensions. Yet, they often prefer to lurk in the lower 3 dimensions that constitutes their ‘feeding grounds.’ In fact, through their reverse-spin light fields forming reverse-particle-spin matter fields, they can create Hyperdimensional zones in the fabric of space that epitomize a form of space-between-space dimension. For example, the negative aliens often hang in and inhabit within pockets in the atmosphere of Earth that are referred to as the ‘hibernation zones.’ Think of these ‘pockets’ as to exist in the reverse side of the curved space (say convex versus concave side), in line with what the author has introduced as the ‘conjugate-mirrored’ aspects of a space-time, with one epitomizing the ‘physical,’ and the other, the ‘ethereal’ side of the same space-time. In this respect, it is akin to making a mini wormhole to reach the ‘other side’ of the space-time, which provides a good ‘hiding space,’ as one would be ‘stealth’ and out of sight of whatever exists in the physical plane. The form of AI technology that is responsible to create the illusion of False white light is referred to as the ‘Nibiru Electrostatic Transduction (NET) Field Technology.’ Through this technology, it is possible to create a ‘shroud’ of False light through quantum reversal of spin of the fundamental particles of matter that encapsulates and clouds and distorts the natural organic holographic space and reality of humanity that is originally sourced from the base 12 Grid or Divine Tree of Life and is based upon the fundamental principles of the Law of One, by effectively forming a kind of ‘holographic inserts.’ This concept is akin to putting distortive lenses in front of the natural holographic projections of Light that would refract or bend the natural Light, effectively disfiguring the organic holographic reality, imposing self-destructive mind controlling impulses streamed upon humanity. And, a great deal of the nefarious work of the negative aliens in this part of universal dimensional planes, and in particular Earth, is conducted via the Astral Plane that comprises the lowest plane of the 4th dimension. Accordingly, a brief account of the foundation of operation of the negative aliens that includes ‘Light mimicry’ via forming ‘False white light’ and its usage in order to lower humans into the Astral Plane for repeated cycles of futile reincarnations has been explicated. In this regard, visualize yourself as having a ‘False umbilicus’ to the Astral Plane that after death uses an AI machinery that directs you to the Astral Plane through following the proverbial  “white tunnel,’’ that culminates in you reincarnating on the 3D Earth so you can experience the same life sojourns of misery, pain, disease, ageing, and finally recurring death, negating any possibility for your multidimensional consciousness experience or consciousness expansibility and Ascension to the higher planes of existence. And, all this epitomizes misuse of technology effectuated mainly through mind control programming that condemns humans into a “sleeper state,” unaware of what is transpiring, while one’s precious divine consciousness energetics is being systematically harvested or siphoned for their consumption, leading to their survival and even  longevity. Finally, it is explicated that through the benevolent interjection of the Guardian-Founders, this futile cycle of reincarnation is now ending. And, it is of paramount importance that via spiritual awakening, and striving to attain enlightenment, you finally develop an appreciation for your incredibly advanced God’s technological marvel design of consciousness embodiment as the ‘Crown Jewel of ALL this Universal Creation,’ by making at least a modicum of efforts in order to live up to your incredible possible potentials as an embodied form of God in whatever dimension that you may end up upon your Ascension.

Social scientists and folk views have long had it that there is an association between religiosity and prosocial behaviour, but hard evidence for such a relationship is limited. Studies show that religiosity is correlated with self-reported prosociality, however this relationship is not very clear when it comes to observed prosocial behaviours. Experimental studies reveal a link between religious priming and prosocial behaviours, and remarkably such effects hold irrespectively of degrees of religiosity. Building on and combining the strengths of previous field designs, I report here the results of a field experiment in Mauritius examining the effects of religious environments on cooperation in a naturalistic setting. These results were consistent with previous findings that religious cues may increase cooperation. Importantly, this effect was not dependent on degrees of prior religiosity. Plausible interpretations of such effects are discussed.

The corpus of art from the Pleistocene has grown substantially in recent decades, and with it, the earliest evidence of visual art has become much older than previously anticipated, going back over 100,000 years. This new information has rendered some traditional ideas about the recent origins of visual art obsolete. Existing archaeological and evolutionary models that aim to explain the emergence of visual art should now be reassessed in light of current data. That is the aim of this book. First, it reviews the earliest examples of different forms of visual art in two important archaeological periods of human artistic innovation, the height of the African Middle Stone Age, and the European Early Upper Palaeolithic. It then takes a critical view at three influential origins-of-art models, namely, the sexual selection model, the social cohesion model, and the cognitive evolution model. Finally, it offers an alternative proposal that redefines visual art as a communication signal and, using the archaeological evidence, relates its emergence and development to the evolution of human cooperation strategies. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the debate of the origins of art and the evolution of modern human cognition, behaviour, and culture.

The term biology is of Greek origin meaning the study of life. On the other hand, chemistry is the science of matter, which deals with matter and its properties, structure, composition, behavior, reactions, interactions and the changes it undergoes. The theory of abiogenesis maintains that chemistry made a transition to biology in a primordial soup. To keep the naturalistic ‘inanimate molecules to human life’ evolution ideology intact, scientists must assemble billions of links to bridge the gap between the inanimate chemicals that existed in the primordial soup and anatomically modern humans. Even though the proponents of a natural origin of life expressed much optimism for providing their theories, presently there is a detailed compilation of information seriously questioning this doctrine. This reductionistic ideology has always failed to answer two simple questions: (1) What is the minimum number of parts that are essential for a living organism to survive? (2) By what mechanism do these parts get assembled together? Evolutionists say a series of prebiotic processes and developments guide networks of dynamically linked small molecules and amphiphiles to form biological macromolecules, membraneous compartments, and finally primitive cells. However, none of these proposed pathways to life appears to be credible. The continuous advancement in various fields of science are not only providing major challenges to reductionistic ideology but are supplying increasing evidence for a systemic concept of life as an organic whole. Several leading researchers in the field of ‘origin of life’ are continually concluding that there are major scientific problems attached with all existing naturalistic ‘origin of life’ hypothesis. Only by taking into account all biological activities collectively as a system can a satisfactory elucidation of the living state be realized. In this present paper an attempt has been made to present a few significant challenges to the theory of abiogenesis based on the peer reviewed scientific literature. Subsequently, a non-reductionistic concept of life as a system is proposed as an alternative for resolving some of the problems inherent in origin of life research.

Two decades ago, the collective effort of numerous scientists laid the foundation of a new synthesis of physical anthropology, paleoneurobiology, ethology, biocultural evolution, systematic musicology, semiotics, historical linguistics, and developmental psychology in "The Origins of Music" (MIT Press, 2000). The purpose of this was to overcome the lack of archaeological evidence for the prehistoric development of music. This volume, "The Evolution of Music", updates these fields and adds to them a few other new ones: organology, musicological analysis, geomusicology, demography, information theory, statistical modeling, paleo-aesthetics, paleo-phonology, and biological motion. In addition, we address a number of interdisciplinary problems, especially the growing conviction amongst Western ethnomusicologists that humanities and sciences are fundamentally split, and that the scientific approach somehow introduces an "anti-humanitarian" bias.

This project analyses a wide range of current literature concerning the origins and evolution
of language. A major focus is on constraining the time in which language evolved, covering
recent and gradual origins hypotheses. Included are models that interpret the foundations
of language as a sudden emergent property, as well as models that propose an accretionary
accrual of a modern suite of linguistic abilities. A ‘gesture-first’ model is presented in line
with the gradual evolution of language, and tool-making is suggested as a reinforcement
framework for language lateralization and even syntactical operations. Finally, the
supportive biological evidence (including the Kebara 2 hyoid bone and FOXP2) is determined
to reinforce the gradual and gestural models rather than emergent models of language
evolution. What we are left with is a model that posits that language cannot have originated
later than 100kya, could have gained prominence between then and 400,000 years ago and
was already subject to a functional cultural-ecological development prior to this.

The explication of altruistic behavior in primates remains complex. Gregarious, socially complex primates are characterized by a diverse array of social behavior patterns with seemingly altruistic behavior being relatively commonplace. Human societies are a form of primate society but with much higher levels of social complexity and extremely high levels of cooperative and apparently altruistic behavior. It is likely that there are elements of primate (at least anthropoid) sociality that act as baseline for subsequent expansion and elaboration during human evolution. Can understanding patterns and contexts of primate social complexity and cooperation help us understand human altruism? In this chapter we have two primary objectives: to examine three non-human primate genera to show how social cooperation, social bonding, and niche construction can affect our understandings of altruism, and to illustrate where we think that such non-human primate information is a good model for humans, and where it is not.

This research is intended to investigate Cooperation and to understand how we can stop the self-interested behaviour of the individual from damaging the long-term interests of the group. Indeed, it is reasonable to think that following cooperation could lead to a mutual benefit for everyone. Nevertheless, reality is often controversial, as selfishness and individuality dominate. This creates problems, because people and organizations fail to coordinate and to make optimal decisions. Because of the wide-ranging nature of the issue, we relied on a largely interdisciplinary theoretical base, grounding on a managerial, micro-economic, financial, epistemological and sociological literature and empirical cases. Our methodological approach grounds on the Thompson’s Epistemic-Ontological Alignment Theory (2011), by combining an Entitative Dimension (models of reality) and a Process Dimension (flux of interactions) to create a consistent and justifiable Mid-Range Theory. By departing from the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Axelrod’s solution, Coordination Games and models of cooperation between firms, we then analysed flux of cooperative interactions and knowledge creation. We eventually found out that the so-called Future Game® and the Scenario Game represent a practical embodiment of the Evolution of Cooperation envisaged by Axelrod, and an important contribution to the Reformation of Cooperation envisaged by Sennett, to avoid the spread of the uncooperative self. They also constitute an example of the emerging practice of gaming, acknowledged as the New Frontier of knowledge management and managerial consultancy. This work wants to be a new beginning for a new research stream around cooperation and knowledge creation through gaming, and around the Scenario Game and the related Future Game®, to create a base for further discussions by departing from the insights produced by our analysis.