Supercooperatori. Altruismo ed evoluzione: perché abbiamo bisogno l'uno dell'altro

Super Cooperators is a book about a mathematician who develops a mathematical model to describe how cooperation might evolve out of the conditions of classical Darwinian natural selection. It's a fascinating topic described in a somewhat cloying manner. The results are fascinating: I was particularl Leggi tutto

This book tops among my readings in 2016, not only it gives an overview of a very successful research career but also provides insights into ideas which connect many of our intuitions. The text is very well written with internal consistency and pointers to research papers which actually helped me im Leggi tutto

Not a new book (2011), but fascinating reading that provides lots of insights into the world of world´s leading scientists (mathematicians, biologists, physicists and many more) whose cooperation moves the horizons of human understanding. I was afraid that I will skip the first hundred pages as they Leggi tutto

This was a fantastic read. This was a fun book to read. The premise of the book is a subject that theologians have dealt with for a lot longer than any other field of study. The title says it all. One of the toughest problems faced by many an atheist is the ability to articulate altruism. I can't sa Leggi tutto

The book gives a good overview of the application of mathematical biology to the study of cooperative behavior in nature. Before reading the book, I thought that the selfish gene theory was what was still believed. The book shows that selfish gene theory in the form of kinship selection does play a

The last chapter/epilogue was, as with most epilogues, a little disappointing and sort of worthless. From the chapter and a bit I read of Nowak’s other book (Evolutionary Dynamics), his gift is in explaining mathematics with numbers and formulas, and probably not in conveying it to the lay audience Leggi tutto

Pretty disappointing. Really, it seemed to be almost content-free, after the initial discussion of the Prisoner's Dilemma and the contests organized around the same. Like many "popular science" books, this one paired a researcher and a writer, so the researcher's ideas could be palatable to normal pe Leggi tutto