Friday, May 2, 2008

Research news: Selfishness may be Altruism's Unexpected Ally

The News:
Selfishness May Be Altruism's Unexpected Ally
ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) — Just as religions dwell upon the eternal battle between good and evil, angels and devils, evolutionary theorists dwell upon the eternal battle between altruistic and selfish behaviors in the Darwinian struggle for existence. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), evolutionary theorists at Binghamton University suggest that selfishness might not be such a villain after all.
Omar Tonsi Eldakar and David Sloan Wilson propose a novel solution to this problem in their article, which is available in the online Early Edition of PNAS. They point out that selfish individuals have their own incentive to get rid of other selfish individuals within their own group. Read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (click on Full Text pdf)

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