Topic: globalWarming
Ross Garnaut talks about the 'prisoners dilemma' in the context of his global warming report. He means folks who cheat on their buddy - the other prisoner - who doesn't know whether he will be turned in. Yet if both cooperate and trust eachother (in this case to stay silent) both will have equal advantage from severe penalty.
He means if everyone behaves in a Kyoto style treaty of international cooperation everyone benefits unless someone cheats - like the USA under W Bush, or like India or China growing with dirty energy.
Then there is Professor Peter Singer the famous ethicist on ABC RN this morning and recent book reviews also wondering aloud about the motives for charity to save child lives versus the selfish. Why some do and others don't.
And in popular culture form it's represented in The Dark Knight by the evil Joker holding two groups of people in separate ships wired with explosives. It's a global warming metaphor and perhaps the political aphorism 'disunity is death'. Who will murder the others based on irrational fear to prevent the same to them? Who will cheat? It's Palestine Israel. It's the whole life experience.
All this takes us back to the 1980ies study of evolutionary ecology at the Zoology Dept of the Australian National University. What causes "co-operation" within some species to evolve? (In writing this we are now reminded that "mutualism" refers to co-operation between species.) Why share when the food and other individual goals like breeding or shelter might benefit the individual cheater more, than pulling ones weight? That is advance the one over the many.
Then proceed to complex theories of shared genetics (kin selection) amongst relatives in a flock or mob versus competitors of the same species. And debates over group (or multi level) selection versus individuals in the test of survival of the fittest. Also analysis of external threats, like large carnivores or maybe temperature regulation, and other benefits of co-operation.
All very apt given the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin father of evolution.
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Location: Law Courts Building, Sydney
Address: Banco Court, Level 13, Queen's Square, 184 Phillip St
Date : Thursday, 12 February 2009
Time : 5:45pm
Website: www.cis.org.au
Professor Dutton will show how Darwin?s evolutionary ideas not only explain the facts of animal and human biology, but have much to say about the moral, intellectual, and artistic lives of human beings. Evolutionary processes tell us why the arts are central to human life across cultures and ages. This provocative lecture will include an opportunity for questions and answers, with Dutton offering radical new insights into both the nature of art and the workings of the human mind.
Who's coming:
Prof. Denis Dutton........................
The zoologists and behavioural ecologists have trodden this theoretical path and scientific discussion for literally decades. The economists and ethicists might benefit from talking to some serious evolutionary ecologists about co-operation - where it works and where it doesn't.
A caution applies: The story of humanity doesn't really conform to Darwin's evolutionary theories in any neat form. Short sighted people breed all the time. Others also prosper like cripples with a gift for science, or folks lucky enough to get penicillin for child hood ailments.
But the concepts behind analysing co-operation in evolutionary theory might have some lessons to offer yet.
