The Evolution of Cooperation The Evolution of Cooperation

Abstract

The theory of evolution is based on the struggle for life and the survival of the fittest. Yet cooperation is common be- tween members of the same species and even between members of different spe- cies. Before about 1960, accounts of the evolutionary process largely dismissed cooperative phenomena as not requiring special attention. This position followed from a misreading of theory that as- signed most adaptation to selection at the level of populations or whole spe- cies. As a result of such misreading, cooperation was always considered adaptive. Recent reviews of the evolu- tionary process, however, have shown no sound basis for a pervasive group- benefit view of selection; at the level of a species or a population, the processes of selection are weak. The original individ- ualistic emphasis of Darwin's theory is more valid.