Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Evolution

The good, the bad and the lonely

Nature volume 419, pages 677–679 (2002)Cite this article

In game theory, 'loners' who choose not to participate in fact promote cooperation between players. The dynamics of the game show phase transitions and complex phenomena reminiscent of statistical physics.

Hungarian-born genius John von Neumann, in a rare moment of humility, confessed that he considered himself a failure: according to his own ranking, he was only the third-best mathematician of the time. Yet von Neumann not only built one of the first computers and achieved breakthroughs in fields as diverse as operator theory, mathematical logic and hydrodynamics, he also created several fields of mathematics from scratch. Two of these fields, game theory1 and cellular automata2, are merging in the study of evolutionary dynamics3. Earlier this year, Hauert et al.4 pushed this development further by investigating the effects of voluntary participation in 'public-goods games' — players can choose whether or not to join in a game (or interaction) that may benefit them. That work is now extended by Szabó and Hauert5, writing in Physical Review Letters, to a large interacting community of players on spatial grids.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Evolutionary kaleidoscope.

References

  1. Von Neumann, J. & Morgenstern, O. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton Univ. Press, New Jersey, 1944).

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Von Neumann, J. Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (Univ. Illinois Press, Champaign, 1966).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Nowak, M. A. & May, R. M. Nature 359, 826–829 (1992).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Hauert, C., De Monte, S., Hofbauer, J. & Sigmund, K. Science 296, 1129–1132 (2002).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Szabó, G. & Hauert, C. Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 118101 (2002).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Trivers, R. L. Q. Rev. Biol. 46, 35–57 (1971).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Axelrod, R. & Hamilton, W. D. Science 211, 1390–1396 (1981).

    Article  MathSciNet  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Frank, S. A. Foundations of Social Evolution (Princeton Univ. Press, New Jersey, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Wedekind, C. & Milinski, M. Science 288, 850–852 (2000).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Binmore, K. Playing Fair (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1994).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Coleman, A. M. Game Theory and its Application in the Social and Biological Sciences (Butterworth–Heinemann, Oxford, 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. Nature 415, 137–140 (2002).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Henrich, J. R. et al. Am. Econ. Rev. 91, 73–78 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Wolfram, S. A New Kind of Science (Wolfram Media, Champaign, Illinois, 2002).

    MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Franziska Michor

  2. the Institute for Advanced Study, Einstein Drive, Princeton, 08540, New Jersey, USA

    Martin A. Nowak

Authors
  1. Franziska Michor
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Martin A. Nowak
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martin A. Nowak.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Michor, F., Nowak, M. The good, the bad and the lonely. Nature 419, 677–679 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/419677a

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/419677a

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing