The Science of Cooperation - with Nichola Raihani

If evolution is all about competition, how did humans and other animals evolve to cooperate?
Nichola's book "The Social Instinct" is available now: geni.us/socialinstinct
Watch the Q&A: • Q&A: The Science of Co...
Nichola Raihani illuminates the role of cooperation in the human story: why we live in families, why women experience the menopause and why we routinely help complete strangers. We also explore the dark side of cooperation, looking at how cooperation creates victims, where cooperation fails, and why we sometimes cheat.
Nichola Raihani is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor in Evolution and Behaviour at UCL. Her group's research focuses on the evolution of social behaviour in humans and non-human species. She has been widely published in scientific journals, won the 2018 Philip Leverhulme Prize in Psychology for her research achievements, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2018. She has also worked in the BBC Science Development Team, and appeared on several podcasts and radio shows, including BBC Radio 4’s ‘Hacking the Unconscious’ and ‘Thought Cages’.
This talk was recorded on 19 August 2021.
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[@TheRoyalInstitution]

Guess who's back? Our team was able to host our first in-theatre event since we locked down and we're very, very glad to be back. We're still continuing with a hybrid model of theatre and online talks, as movement is still not entirely free in the world, but you'll be seeing more and more of our beautiful theatre in the coming months. Please note the mentimeter codes in the video will not work now as they expired after the live event.

[@neendevi2477]

Awesome 🙌

[@Redbirdgangipad]

Thank heavens…no offense but the zoom calls were not the best quality…..

[@Redbirdgangipad]

In the future if there’s need to limit contact you should have the lectures speak before an empty theater that way the audio quality will be good.

[@Beeza2996]

It’s about time! I actually haven’t watched an Ri video in quite a while for this very reason.

[@scoreprinceton]

Why do the mentimeter codes turn off, after the live event? It seems such a waste not to continue gathering data from these events even after they are over; if gathering data for one purpose can be made into a longitudinal study of the influences of many other social behaviors with very little cost to generate more valuable insights of social studies from extended audiences.

[@tatotato85]

Forever tankful to you people for sharing quality education for free

[@ollyr_3710]

Very well presented lecture, good structure and helpful examples.

[@eskileriksson4457]

Missed this one when it was new, came here now from the short version you uploaded, as I thought the subject was really interesting. Well done, RI, for reminding me.

[@PhilosophicalTrials]

I really liked this lecture! Very clear explanations and nice examples.

[@xandersafrunek2151]

It sounds like a very relaxing PhD to watch birds. I'm sure it wasn't, but it sounds nice.

[@iseriver3982]

Great talk

[@AddictedToC64]

Seeing so many empty seats in the audience feels totally off - but I am so happy to see the in-person talks being back! However, I wonder how it feels for the speakers to just have this tiny little audience that would almost fit into a living room (in times of no social distancing, of course!). After realizing that my national ID card is no longer enough to travel to the UK, I sadly will once again miss a great talk next Thursday. At least I can look forward to finding it here on the channel afterwards.

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

We had a particularly small audience for Nichola as it was our first event back in the theatre in August and we were cautious with a 25% capacity limit. She hadn't given an in-person talk in more than a year so was very glad to have some live reactions after months of Zoom!

[@bellaiswijianto9807]

Great presentation 👍

[@luckyyuri]

Important and timely discussion on this subject. Ethologist Frans de Waal also has great talks about this.

[@i_smoke_ghosts]

very good

[@mornayviljoen881]

Brilliant

[@l.kuutti4946]

Meerkats' behavior toward the speaker could also be explained by hypothesizing not that they lack the capability to mentalize, but that they lack the capability to conceive other sources for those calls than the actual pups. And how could they? No speakers or such abstract items exist in their world-experienced.

[@asecretturning]

Is not such mentalisation the underlying capability which would enable them to conceive of other sources in the first place?

[@l.kuutti4946]

@@asecretturning Not necessarily. Mentalization only requires adult meerkats are able to see the world through their pups eyes in some degree. Correct classifications are not necessary for that skill.

[@RonKefa]

You've got to be proud to be a member of the species that can do science and figure out amazing stuff about ourselves and other living things.

[@James-qb6cs]

Awesome presentation but a note for the audio - is it possible to have the microphone further away from the presenter's mouth so we don't hear every breath and tongue movement? lol

[@ResidualSelfImage]

Reputation management meets cooperation

[@zubrz]

is it possible to fix the follicular decline? is there any research in this direction?

[@salemsaberhagan]

Women are born with all the eggs they'll ever release. Every unfertilized menstrual cycle is an egg wasted. But every pregnancy is at least around 9 eggs saved because the body chemically freezes & maintains eggs for the duration of a pregnancy. That's how there used to be old (by modern standards) women having kids in their 50s or 60s in prosperous but conservative & uneducated societies with 10-12 kids per mother if she survived childbirth. We could figure out how the body manages that, but as far as I know, most research involves extracting eggs & storing them for IVF coz that's a much easier process. The female reproductive system is very delicate & there will be too many side effects of trying to keep women fertile for longer. Women already face so many issues with pills even though they just delay cycles. It probably won't be worth the risks to even run any experiments in this direction.

[@salemsaberhagan]

@@poetryflynn3712 I don't think so. Follicles are singular cells. The entire human is millions & trillions of cells. Just because you know how to keep one cell in suspended animation doesn't mean you can do that for a whole organism. Cells are always in interaction with one another so even if they're all somehow immortal, they will come into conflict with each other or an external factor & that can lead to illness. Because what is life if not activity? Essentially, you'd have the equivalent of a comatose person if you want to preserve every cell in mint condition.

[@wersus9103]

How would evolution shape the longevity of egg cells past 50 years of age (post-menopausal) and consequent favoritism towards ''grandmother altruism'' if humans in distant prehistory didn't live that long, or well if they did, it was extremely rare. Not just in prehistory, human life span increased rapidly in past century. Would evolution really have a play in this? Not to mention that some cultures don't strictly have that altruistic grandmother supportive structure. Couldn't menopause be explained simply by evolutionary unpreparedness for such drastic shift in human life spans? Again, just recently, human life spans and general quality of life immensely increased. Simply put, evolution didn't need to select individuals with ''age resistant'' egg cells, it would probably be too genetically or physiologically costly in a long run if it didn't have any use for humans at that time, since they mostly didn't live past their 50's, hence, once human race drastically increased their life spans trough scientific (and consequent technological and medical) ''evolution'' which acts much quicker than natural/biological (Darwin's) evolution, biological evolution came short handed, it wasn't prepared for such drastic shift in life spans and hence menopause presents itself. Also, andropause as well, but it's not as drastic nor as ''reproductively crippling'' as is the case with menopause.

[@David-xo5qq]

"human life span increased rapidly in past century" My understanding is that this is more due to a decrease in infant/child mortality than because life spans are actually growing significantly longer. By greatly reducing the number of infants/children who die young, the average life span increases significantly, even if the age to which adults ultimately live doesn't actually increase much. In other words, those of our ancestors who survived to adulthood probably lived longer than you'd think based solely on what the average human life span used to be.

[@pynn1000]

@@David-xo5qq Deaths were also high for "young adults" in the years before the human brain is fully formed at 25. We've reduced the deaths associated with childbirth over much of the world, but "accidental injuries" are the leading cause of death in young adults today - I strongly suspect that broad label would have applied in the past.

[@peartreedu]

Nichola is very nervous! Why? It's her time to shine!

[@David-xo5qq]

She does seem very nervous to me, but there was no need to be! It was a great presentation. Maybe she was worried that something would go wrong with the interactive aspects of the presentation.

[@princesskenyetta4745]

Ideologies destroy compassion.

[@liquidvisual]

Great to see more about cooperation. Not sure that human males don't go as far as do male peacocks. :-)

[@xetrius3671]

Can you expand on "Chimpansees should never use FB", is it just a humorous comment on the mainstream or have studies been done with a Chimpbook?

[@iseriver3982]

I bet its got something to do with how chimps use body language to communicate. Guess we'll have to buy the book to find out.

[@xetrius3671]

@@iseriver3982 I've seen non-human apes easy interface touchscreen PC's before, so I am wondering if they tried to allow multiple non-human apes to communicate via that medium.

[@sambathehusqueen9909]

ants :'( :'( :'( i will never squish another ant again.

[@morthim]

I never met a teacher like that lol

[@i_smoke_ghosts]

wats the lol? i got here late

[@fairwind8676]

i don't think we're mostly cooperative.

[@fairwind8676]

i think it's mostly self interest.

[@trvsgrant]

Business is the opposite of cooperation. It is literally competition. This is how mindless people have become to the nature of early 21st century society.

[@manuelweichelt528]

this isnt relly the case it is the same evolution and sometimes like the taxis cooperation yields bigger benefits than competition

[@heheboi7443]

[@TehSuperHero]

This seems to be contrary to Richard Dawkins' idea of "The Selfish Gene".

[@oldcowbb]

no, it is the exact same thing, altruistic behavior emerging from selfish reason

[@nathanielgregg543]

It’s not really. The gene is so selfish, it doesn’t care about any single individual and makes them selflessly help their kin.

[@salemsaberhagan]

Cooperation often brings long term personal benefits.