Co-operation adds up, the math says

I’ve been reading Jonathan Haidt and Edward O. Wilson this week, so it was serendipitous to run across a very different take on one of their favourite topics — the dynamics of co-operation.

“Does it pay to be nice? – the maths of altruism ” by Rachel Thomas was published in two parts by +Plus magazine on April 23rd. The article highlights the work of Harvard biologist and mathematician Martin Nowak, who has long applied mathematical analysis to such classic co-operation exercises as the “Prisoner’s Dilemma.”