Cooperation Is Essential to Existence
Confronting extinction has a way of focusing one’s attention. It’s the ultimate existential threat: No survivors.
That was on the mind of Martin Nowak when he wrote a book called SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed. Nowak is a professor of biology and mathematics, which explains why he spent years constructing mathematical models to depict how evolution comprises more than survival of the fittest.
Charles Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of Species introduced the theory that populations of all living things evolve over generations through a process called natural selection. Darwin described how organisms change through the principles of mutation and selection, with mutations generating variations, and selection picking those variations best suited to their environment.
Nowak and his co-author, philosopher Roger Highfield, added cooperation as a third principle to mutation and selection. Darwin “was convinced that selection was ruled by conflict.” Individuals most able to adapt to their environment will win the resources to survive and produce more offspring to inherit their traits. Nowak’s research showed that competition among organisms did not always result in the fittest individuals surviving. In some instances organisms sacrificed themselves to assure the survival of their species.
Nowak calls cooperation “the master architect of evolution.”
Our breathtaking ability to cooperate is one of the main reasons we have managed to survive in every ecosystem on earth, from scorched, sun-baked deserts to the frozen wastes of Antarctica to the dark, crushing ocean depths.
Nowak’s research established that such cooperative behavior could be observed across species and at all levels of life from individual cells (like bacteria) to multi-cell organisms (like humans).
In a recent blog post, Peter Diamandis, an engineer and entrepreneur, asserted the indispensable role of cooperation in employing technology to reach a future that enriches the lives of every man, woman and child. Cooperative tools of transportation and information technology shortened the time for people, goods and information to move around the world. Diamandis foresees exponential change in technology leading “further advancements in our tools of cooperation.”
Nowak concludes his book with a sobering thought:
I think that life has evolved in the universe often and has done so for the 13.7 billion years our cosmos has been in existence. But, as far as we can see, we are alone. Intelligent life does not seem to stay around for long. This should give us pause for thought. Now, more than ever, we need to cooperate, and on a global scale. Although we are teetering on the brink of disaster, we are also on the brink of advancing to the next level of cooperation.